Minneapolis musician Jeremy Messersmith can be a little macabre, often spending his songwriting power on graveyards and suburbia. But when the world becomes dark, his music turns to the overtly positive to provide comfort.
He is often compared to Portland’s Elliott Smith, but Messersmith has created his own brand of emotional songwriting. Though Messersmith writes dark indie-pop with lush strings, his music is also undeniably funny in a way that Smith’s music isn’t. Messersmith manages to tackle difficult and varied topics with grace in a way only his offbeat humor can.
On Friday, Messersmith surprise released a 15-minute album called “11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs for Ukulele: A Micro Folk Record for the 21st Century and Beyond.” He’s ventured into a territory all his own with this record; it’s positive in a way that feels necessary. The album cover depicts Messersmith covered in cats as an homage to the first track, “Everybody Gets a Kitten.” It even credits the songwriting to “Jeremy Messersmith and kittens.”
He’s been working on a full-length album supposedly titled “Late Stage Capitalism” for a few years now. After the election of our current president this November, Messersmith closed himself in a cabin in Minnesota for a few days with a ukulele. He came out with a different product than one might expect.
During that cabin stay, Messersmith produced 11 short songs, all undeniably sweet and optimistic like the songwriter himself. In a similar fashion to indie artist Beck, Messersmith first released “Obscenely Optimistic” as a songbook. He invited fans to record videos of themselves singing and performing the songs to share under the hashtag, #ObscenelyOptimistic. On his current tour, he is inviting audience members to bring instruments to participate in the shows and sing along.
As he wrote on his website, “I think communities that sing together are stronger and more resilient than those that don’t.”
While his 2010 album “The Reluctant Graveyard” matches grief with hope, “Obscenely Optimistic” presents only pure joy. The instrumentation is simple — Messersmith recorded the album in one day — with just a ukulele accompanying his voice. Every song has its own music video, featuring Messersmith in his signature glasses, strumming away at his ukulele.
It’s hard not to smile when listening to this album. “Everybody Gets a Kitten” details a future where “All the factories burn rainbows and you can buy a house on Mars.” Sure, it seems silly, but when Messersmith sings these lyrics in his slight falsetto, it’s hard not to take his sentiment to heart, as fan videos show.
The recordings people have shared with Messersmith are integral to how the album is received. It’s not just a positive album, but it’s also a way for people to directly engage with positive thinking.
Most songs on the album don’t contain as much cheesiness as “Everybody Gets a Kitten,” but they are still sincere attempts at making eloquently crafted tiny pop songs.
“Everything is Magical” is only 2:20, but encapsulates the love songs of his last release, 2014’s “Heart Murmurs.” While “Everything is Magical” feels well-crafted and intentional, the track after, “Honeybee” falls flat because it goes overboard on the sweetness.
On his website, Messersmith details his reason for releasing the album: “Because we all need a ray of sunshine every now and again. Because it’s important to not lose sight of how good things could be. Because the first step to a better world is to imagine a better world.”
It doesn’t take much for Jeremy Messersmith to make the world a better place, if only for a few short moments.
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