Jarrod Mahon was raised in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia. Today the musician resides in Berlin, Germany. Back in Australia and up until very recently, J Mahon wrote songs and performed as Emerson Snowe, a moniker created to show music to his friends, as a form of escape-ism, and to push artistic curiosity. Emerson Snowe toured Australia with King Krule and Ariel Pink, and in 2019 he performed at SXSW, The Great Escape and played with Fat White Family, Viagra Boys and Surfbort in the UK. But, after five home recorded albums and 13 EP’s, including two officially released EP’s ‘That’s Rock n Roll’ (2019) and ‘Emerson Snowe’s Splatterpunk’ (2021), Mahon’s curiosity was finally satisfied, and escaping was no longer necessary.
Relocating to Berlin in 2019 proved to be a time of self-reflection for Mahon, who comments on this time, “Only you are responsible for the growth you make and being able to analyse your own past and to properly move forward to change your own life”. It was in this strange and isolated world that a proficient run of new song writing ideas were being formed, with optimism for living and the future at the core. Between 2019 and 2020, Mahon wrote 230 songs, but it was the 18 songs written over August and October 2021 that were fully realized and formed the collection that would be recorded in his Berlin apartment and become the debut album demos.
Over three weeks in May 2022, Mahon recorded what would become the debut J Mahon album ‘Everything Has a Life’ with producer Syd Kemp at Ha Ha Sounds studio in London. Co-producing the album with Kemp, meant the pair were able to keep the homespun, Lo-Fi aesthetic, while bringing the studio richness and warmth to the tracks, giving the album its lush and intimate feel. Mahon plays several instruments, is backed by his live Berlin super-group and features members of Caroline on strings.
‘Everything Has a Life’ is a collection of personal songs that come straight from the pages of Mahon’s diary, where love, loneliness, dreams, and dependency are met with romantic hope, faith, and fear. The album bounces along from radio-ready psych pop to emotionally charged US-tinged indie, while Mahon’s open-hearted lyrics of melancholic nostalgia are enough to keep you returning to the start. A range of influences can be found in the record from Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Illinois’ album, PJ Harvey, Bradford Cox, Cate Le Bon, Sparklehorse, Neil Diamond, Roy Orbison, and Patti Smith
