Americana Highways brings you this song premiere of Jake Allen’s “More Than Meets The Eye” from his forthcoming album Affirmation Day (Six Degrees Records). Affirmation Day was produced and mixed by Jake Allen, with co-production and additional engineering by Jonathan Russo. The album was mastered by Richard Dodd.
Jake Allen played all the instruments on “More Than Meets the Eye” except that Basil Alter played violin and Aistė Kontautaitė provided additional vocals.
This song is dancing on the pop, indie folk edge of the Americana spectrum. In the midst of an initially disarming arrangement it conjures up an uncanny primordial experience. Listen and see.
I think on the first listen it would be easy to sum up “More Than Meets The Eye” as a love song, but that’s far from it’s real backstory. That being said, in 2019 I had my first experience with the ancient amazonian medicine, Ayahuasca. This tune was something I felt compelled to write shortly after.
It feels less weird talking about things like this in 2020. Thanks to people like Joe Rogan and other adventurous voices in mainstream media, the idea of the psychedelic experience is becoming more normalized. I think it’s getting more common to accept that there are things that have been put on this earth that can essentially rewire our brains and seemingly put us in direct contact with higher realms of consciousness. I personally don’t think these tools should be taken lightly, or used recreationally for that matter. But it seems lately that psychedelics are starting to be embraced as something that can be more useful than previously realized. Overcoming centuries of their condemnation is an obstacle, but with the way the world is moving it’s likely right around the corner.
During my first personal journey with the medicine, I was taken to these etheric places I knew I had been before and I found myself interacting with beings that I felt like I had been in cahoots with since the beginning of time. It felt a bit like slipping into the backstage area of life itself. Aside from giggling like a child who had secretly snuck into a place that’s typically off limits, I was given an opportunity to congregate with these sort of sprit guides who wanted to check in with me and see how things were going with me being Jake down on Earth, as if it was something we all initially decided would be a good role for me to embody. As far as other profound experiences within those six endless hours, I could go on forever so I’ll just stop there.
So yea, all of that profound craziness and it manifests as a relatively simple pop song.
Whether it’s an inner journey like that or a trip to some far away land with no defined itinerary, I’ve always had this drive to get out there, absorb as many rich experiences as I can, and ring them out into my music. I know what these songs mean to me but how others translate them differently is equally fulfilling. — Jake Allen