This one was kind of the lo-fi, home-recorded precursor to Miracle on Neon Clown Avenue.

I started writing both albums while I was on tour in Taiwan in early 2018, and they both had similar themes of alienation and suicidality, and a sense of being at war with hopelessness and despair, overwhelmed by the global, structural problems that seemed all-powerful and all-encompassing at the time (and, they both had a song with the words “Neon” and “Clown” in the title).

While Miracle on Neon Clown Avenue starts in Brooklyn and then goes down to Virginia and around the universe again, Modern Elephants takes us on a trip from New Orleans up to Times Square, through the portal to another world, and back to Paradiso.

We hear songs inspired by the absurdity of the music industry (“The Bottomless Mississippi”), my experiences of gender dysphoria (“Three Women, Georgia”), queer love or lack thereof (“Hoboken PATH Station”), war and those who exploit people’s vulnerabilities to recruit them for it (“Positively 42nd Street”), capitalism and the state (“Neon Clown Avenue”), and childhood trauma and dissociation (“A Great Stampede”).

It’s dark, brutal, and difficult to listen to in a way that very few other things I’ve made are, and that seems to be why some people love it.

released July 9, 2018

Paul Gubernachuk took the photo on the album cover in Taitung, February 2018.

Jesse wrote music and lyrics, played the instruments and sang, engineered and produced the recordings, and designed the album cover in Oaxaca, later that year.