There’s a common theme running throughout Jeremy Loops’ just-released new album ‘Critical As Water’. It’s one of freedom, life and adaptability – themes which were inspired by Jeremy’s love for the ocean and water itself. Where ‘Waves’ is breezy and light, ‘Underwater Blues’ speaks to the weightlessness of insomnia in a hyper-connected always-on world, rewarded only by the release of sleep – a sort of deep submergence. ‘The Shore’, closer to a crash on the rocks than a docking in the harbour, speaks to social tensions of the times we live in, where failure to act and resist will sink us all.
The singer recalls how surfing and being in the ocean inspired him to make new music after touring the world with his impressive debut album ‘Trading Change’. “I grew frustrated trying to force the music because I knew the album was due, but one night after an incredible surf, I got home, picked up my guitar, and wrote ‘Waves’. Coincidence or not, I became deliberate about scheduling time in the ocean as a means to writing the album and the songs just kept coming,” explains Loops. He concludes, saying that “it isn’t all doom and gloom. If anything, this is the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever made and it’s warm and lush, but the joyful highs are tempered by the real urgency of the problems the world is facing. Times are always changing. We all have the innate ability to flow like water to adapt to it. I like that about life, and I especially like how that comes across on this album. It feels wonderfully rounded.”
The star adds that the current water crisis in Cape Town was also a topic he couldn’t ignore. In an environmental crisis that sees the devastating effects of political mismanagement, unsustainable consumption, and rapidly changing climates coming to a heed, themes come up on songs like ‘Flash Floods’ and a hauntingly beautiful ballad called ‘Vultures’, a more terrifying or apt backdrop to the album’s release cannot be conceived.
Fans have received the star’s new material with open arms and ‘Critical As Water’ bowed in at number one on the South African iTunes charts upon release.
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