LERON THOMAS has been quietly making a stir in his native USA for a while with a conscious and deep brand of funk and jazz.
More recently he has become known for his behind-the-desk work, overseeing Iggy Pop’s Free LP from last year, which he produced, wrote and toured in cahoots with the garage-punk legend and 6Music DJ.
Now he is ready to once again procure a little of that limelight for himself, as he steps up to release his first body of work since 2018’s The Pocket Watch, which came out under his Pan Amsterdam pen-name.
He has shared the video for new single “Blind”, a loose and downtempo
P-funker, graced with a very now, Khruangbin-redolent sense of space and guitar shimmy.
It’d be one to nod to with your eyes shut, save for the precise lyricism, hinging on the line “I made beans and rice for myself at night”: the rhythm of a day of hard knocks, saved only by the most basic ritual of humanity: food. Or is our protagonist in fact hiding in the small safety of eating?
Leron says: “Blind is a song about making one’s day-to-day the excuse for one’s lack of participation in self-growth. Do beans and rice start off as a by-product of someone’s budget or diet? It’s not clear. But by the end of the tune it seems to become the reason to keep going, at least in the subject’s eyes; but tinged with a feeling of doom and despair. Thus, beans and rice ultimately becoming the main excuse for choice of lifestyle.
“We all have our beans and rice: relationships, kids, job, etc.”
Keep abreast with Leron on Facebook and Twitter, and at his label, Lewis Recordings.
