Jon Brion

Most people are never formally introduced to Jon Brion's music. Despite scoring award-winning movies that bolster strong cult followings and producing for charting artists across four decades, his name is often only found by those who wait for the credits or read the back of the CD cover. Luckily, I am one of those people.

The hardest part about getting into Brion's music is that he seems to always work with visionaries. This makes it hard for one to understand what parts of a work is influenced by Brion's artistry and what parts are from the titled artist. Take the dreamlike quailities of Charlie Kaufmann movies. The soundtrack for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sounds like it should, as though Kaufman transposed his mind into Brion and used Brion's musical talents to compose the sountrack. A similar pattern is seen with Brion's influence on Elliot Smith. Prior to the album Figure 8, Elliott Smith carved out a distinct sound through a string of self produced albums. Each album built upon the previous, whether through cleaner guitar and vocal recordings or the addition of new instruments like on XO. The newer baroque sound of Figure 8 can be seen as a direct continual of Smith's progression as an artist past XO, thus making it hard to see Brion's contributions as a friend of Elliot. But that just shows his genius as an artist. Hearing him talk about the creation of the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack, you see how he is able to take PTA's ideas and form them into cohesive musical ideas. It's no wonder why he is loved my artists from all genres.

Even with his impressive catalog as a collaborator, his solo material remains my favorite. Meaningless is his debut album and has multiple standouts (check out his acoustic performance of Trouble with Elliott Smith). Although that is his only non score album on streaming services, he has much more material online, like bootlegs of his performances at the Largo and home demos that never got released.

Beyond music, Brion is a figure of resilience. Many of his collaborators have struggled with mental health issues, and some have tragically lost their lives. He has done few interview and seems relatively quiet, but perhaps that is his own of navigating his health in the digital age.