Jelly Road is populated with Hammond C3s, a Roland Juno-106, and a celeste, which Mills and Weisman alternate between an assortment of acoustic, fretless, and electric guitars and basses. Sam Gendel steers the Electronic Wind Controller on “Unsingable,” later picking up the more familiar saxophone for “Without an Ending.” On “Wendy Melvoin” and “There Is No Now,” he plays a massive contrabass recorder, adding a woody texture that feels both earthy and extraterrestrial. In “Highway Bright,” Weisman and Mills offer independent bass parts on each side of the mix, a detail that leaps out in close listens.
The bewitching air of the instrumental “Wendy Melvoin”—named after the guitarist and vocalist from Prince’s band the Revolution and Wendy & Lisa—makes it one of the album’s strongest moments, and the woman herself joins Weisman and Mills on multiple tracks. Accompanying Prince, Melvoin was indispensable to the Revolution’s high-power sound; here, she expands the duo’s adventures with more subdued flourishes. In “Press My Luck,” her off-kilter wah-wah guitar additions sketch a loose figure, and the electronic interference that crackles through creates a picture that echoes the jumpy, colorful abstraction of scrambled cable.
Though Jelly Road is an invigorating listen, at times, it feels like a case study in hauntology: its squishy production and armory of vintage gear evoke a warmth toward the past, while its lyrics and gently off-kilter melodies hint at wariness toward some vague future. Time is short and littered with empty material rewards in “The Light Is Long,” but it fully dissolves in “There Is No Now,” where Mills croons, “Time unfolding is a trick.” The soft piano and resonant percussion of “Unsingable” pads the reflexive approach, with Mills wondering aloud about the existential qualities of making music: “What can make a song unsingable? What can make a song feel lost?”
In Jelly Road’s title track, Mills’ layered vocals breeze around percussive cloudbursts, its lyrics populated by once-happy dinosaurs and the cozy storybook kings Frog and Toad. It feels like spiritual kin to the kooky Jerry Garcia–David Grisman take on “Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” with a more wistful undercurrent that speaks to lost pleasures. “And though we’ve had some good times/This is what we chose/Tell me it again/About the Jelly Road,” Mills sings, with an air of melancholy that such a place exists only in fantasia. Though clouds of doubt hang in the eaves of Jelly Road, Mills presents a straightforward perspective in “Press My Luck,” where he offers, “Things start getting clearer when they’re fucked.” The path forward may be paved with crumbling bricks, but, as Jelly Road suggests, there might be unknown delights left to discover along the way.
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