By Sean Maldjian, Contributor

Meet Jeremy Hurewitz (rootless)

Get ready to immerse yourself in the world of rootless, the ambient guitar project of musician Jeremy Hurewitz. With over a decade of music-making under his belt, rootless has recently released "Other Reasons", his most ambitious work to date. In this interview, rootless shares his inspiration behind the album title, talks about his favourite musical gear, and reflects on the collaborations that have influenced his creative process. Find out how rootless hopes his music affects listeners and discover the story behind his chance encounter with Island House Recordings founder, Tim McManus.

Hello, welcome to the blog. Can you tell us a little bit about your project?

Rootless has been around for a little over a decade, with about a dozen albums out there. Guitar is at the center, and several of the albums have just been acoustic guitar, but I’ve had collaborators and played some other instruments on many of the records. I like the idea that rootless can incorporate a lot of different sounds and albums can sound very different from each other.

Others have said that your 2023 release “other reasons" is your most ambitious work yet. Can you elaborate on what makes this release stand out from your previous albums?

I think others have said that, but I know I’ve mentioned that it is pretty different from my other releases because of the broader instrumentation, the number of collaborators, and because most of the songs have vocals, whereas I’ve rarely sung on any of the previously releases.

Do you have a piece of musical gear that you are really into right now?

Probably my Roland SP-404. It’s so versatile and allows me to bring so many sounds into my sets. I load it up with synth sounds, field recordings, beats, spoken word, and many other samples that I can then do all sorts of things to live. As I continue to work with it, I discover all sorts of things to add degrees of color and make it all come together better, it’s fun.

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the album title "other reasons" and what it means to you?

Well, it’s also the title of the first track of the album. That phrase, and what follows, kinda just came to me as I was working on the music. I think for me it’s about the idea that you can be living your life one way, in one place, and then things change, for better or for worse, and you find yourself in a totally different world. You think back on the way life used to be and you can see good reasons for why and how things changed. And you can be happy that these changes occurred. But that phantom of your old life is always there.

If you could live anywhere in the world for a year where would it be? Why?

I lived in Prague for 7 years in my 20s and I’m pretty sentimental about it, so the idea of living there for a year sounds nice. I’d go sit in some pubs in the parts of the city without the tourist hordes, go for a walk on the Vltava River and some of the parks in the neighborhood I used to live in, Vinohrady. I think I’d grouse about all the changes, ways the city has become homogenized, but that’s the way it goes, and I think if I had that time and space to reflect like that I’d produce a lot of music and writing.

Your music is instrumental and often quite meditative in nature. What do you hope listeners take away from your music, and how do you hope it affects them?

It has been mostly instrumental up until “Other Reasons.” I don’t mind if people to listen to my albums as background music. If they listen as they read, make dinner, or work, I think that’s cool. I think some of my albums work more for that than others. I hope sometimes people might pick up that I’m searching for something, to say something that only I can say, that message that each of has and is singular. If people can hear that I’m doing that and occasionally saying something original, that would be cool.

What was the best encounter you had with a fan?

I was at a show at Public Records in Brooklyn and this dude materialized from the crowd and said, “hey, are you rootless?” which isn’t something that happens everyday. He told me that he enjoyed my music and we became fast friends. And that dude is Tim McManus who started Island House Recordings and just put out “other reasons.”

You've collaborated with a number of artists and musicians over the years. How have these collaborations influenced your own creative process, and what have you learned from working with others?

In some cases it’s just been hugely encouraging, especially early on, to have musicians I really respected be even willing to collaborate. Brendon Anderegg liking my music, agreeing to do a remix, and then producing a few of my albums has been huge for me because I’m a big Mountains fan. I also learned a lot from Brendon. Kevin Shea is another one, he played on my first Aural Canyon record, and to me he’s one of the most original drummers in the world. Kevin played after I recorded my guitar and hearing him bring those songs to life in his way opened my eyes to the possibility of getting more free with the music. Lately collaborating with Matt Lajoie has been so great because he’s such a fantastic musician, so capable, and so ego-free and just there to make good music. It’s hard to not rise to the occasion and play well with someone like that.