Last May, local musician Jessie Marks released an EP called Patterns—four lush, folk-influenced songs. She’s been writing and performing since she was 8 years old, but generally she’s done it solo. On Patterns, she got to work with several musicians, and the result is sublime, beyond even what Marks knew her music was capable of.
“It was something I had been lacking in my artistic creation. In the studio, you’re able to perfect things. You’re able to go back and listen and say, ‘what would happen if you do this on top?’ You have that experimentation. In a live performance, you can’t really do that,” Marks says.
After recording the EP, her landlord needed to remodel her place, so she put her stuff in storage and went traveling for a while. She hasn’t had a chance to do much performing at this point, but her goal is to take her music to the next level, and put a band together that can help her consistently breathe the kind of life into her music in the live setting that she was able to pull off on her EP.
“Playing alone was great, but I love sharing the experience with other musicians. That’s really where I’m hoping to put more energy into, is in creating an actual band, and utilizing my voice mainly as the main instrument,” Marks says.
INFO: 9 p.m. Jan. 19. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $8. 429-6994.
