If you only know Jon Lajoie from his role as Taco on the FXX comedy series The League, well, it’s probably best to throw that knowledge out the window right about now. Sure, Lajoie can often be seen rocking a guitar in the show, but the man behind Wolfie’s Just Fine is nothing like the character he plays on TV. Now that he’s finally back to making music independent of comedy, the Montreal native is embracing his new surroundings. “I couldn’t really remember who I was when I wasn’t making fun of shit,” he explains. “When I finally asked myself that question, all these songs just sort of poured out of me.”
The result is Wolfie’s Just Fine’s debut album, I Remembered But Then I Forgot. The album’s 10 original compositions owe plenty to the modern indie folk of artists like Bon Iver, but they also reach further back into the collective pop-rock conscious. Traces of The Kinks can be found in the handclap rhythms of “Todd and Janelle”, while Nick Drake’s contemplative folk rears its head from time to time on haunting ballad “A New Beginning”. The truth is, pinning a single influence on any one of these tracks is an exercise in futility. Like a true child of the ‘90s, Lajoie stands between two generations of songwriters, looking backwards and moving forwards in equal measure. The result is a surprisingly mature-sounding indie folk record that’s bound to turn some heads regardless of his background as a TV star.
I Remembered But Then I Forgot comes out April 8th. Stream the album in its entirety below, and pre-order it here.
