jack m senff

Record #908: Jack M. Senff – Low Spirit (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ll admit that I’ve had a hard time with Americana for the last several years. After Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, and the like sent me deep into my own folksy singer-songwriter phase in college, the deluge of Stop&Holler copycats flushed my system. Especially after getting into Krautrock, post-punk, post rock, metal, and various other less middle-of-the-road scenes, it felt like the limited frameworks of traditional singer-songwriter music didn’t have much to offer my limited attention.

But every once in a while, I’ll come upon a really great songwriter that makes me remember what the appeal of stripped sonic palettes and subdued performances were in the first place. Case in point, Jack M. Senff, who spent years playing in various loud and exciting projects before settling into his most natural form.

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Record #907: Jack M. Senff – These Northwood Blues (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Cure binge to clear out my extensive backlog (seriously, there’s still a MONO record waiting to be reviewed that I bought two years ago). And today, we revisit my friend Jack Senff with a look at These Northwood Blues, his second release under his given name.

His transition from emocore frontman to folk singer already seemed pretty realized with Boy Rex, but Good To Know You went so much further towards stripped, intimate songwriting that Boy Rex felt like indie rock. These Northwood Blues however takes it even further, adding earnest country western flavors into the space once occupied by bouncing lead guitar lines—and with brilliant results.

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Record #885: Jack M. Senff – Good to Know You (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Allow me to introduce you to my friend Jack.

Around thirteen years ago, I met Jack as part of a group of local artists, musicians, and poets trying to build a more substantial creative community here in South Bend. I’m not sure how old he was at the time—in my mind, he couldn’t have been older than fifteen, always dressed like someone’s dad in ragged sweaters and giant glasses. At that point, his band Merchant Ships had already broken up, so when I found out a few years later that they had a pretty decent following online, it messed with my brain a bit.

In the years since, he’s helmed a number of projects, from William Bonney to Knola to Midwest Pen Pals, all offering various shades of intense emo. That is, until he took on the moniker of Boy Rex which offered a more intimate brand of folk rock. So intimate in fact that after a few releases, he felt it was more genuine to go by his given name instead.

And while this, his first record billed as Jack M. Senff, is a for all practical purposes a continuation of the Boy Rex project, there’s another level of introspection that can’t be explained entirely by the name change.

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