In Moonflowers, Constant Smiles – a collective featuring a revolving door of ten or more musicians – have made a subtle, masterful album of guitar pop. Constant Smiles take Wilco-ish country pop and juxtapose it with the rich, dense instrumentation of a project like Broken Social Scene to create something that feels timeless and emotionally incisive. Jones’ almost painfully direct lyrics deal succinctly with internal and interpersonal struggle and finding one’s place in the world. There is no space for melodrama here, though, irrespective of the songs’ thematic heaviness. The delivery of the material is calm, stolid, and remarkably grounded, and Jones admits that the process of making this record improved his sense of self-assuredness.
Growing up, Jones idolised Bob Dylan and Nick Drake, artists who he says “inhabited their own universes pretty singularly and had their own interesting voices,” as he tells me. But that kind of creation felt a long way off: “I didn’t have the confidence back then, and I haven’t had the confidence to make the record I really wanted to make. I think a lot of this record is about feeling comfortable with myself as a singer, and my voice and perspective.” It’s the record he’s wanted to make his whole life.
