Jacob Aranda is a Mexican American Bay Area singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, luthier and member of Bay Area psych-folk group Tarnation. His new album War Planes is his second solo album. Aranda’s first solo full-length album, Great Highway (2018), was described by critics as “timeless” (KWMR), “full of beautiful, mellow countryscapes” (Bay Bridged), and “charming, warm and melancholic, with elements and influences that range from classic country to Southwestern-influenced folk” (Sound Thread).
Born and raised in a Latino household in rural Illinois, the culture of Aranda’s upbringing and the necessary resourcefulness of rural living birthed in him an artistic desire to express himself through music. While his first album was an expression of hopelessness and longing, War Planes is fundamentally an album about healing intergenerational trauma and doing so through art. The album feels like a next chapter with elements of rebirth and reflection. Songs of hope, such as “Sing A Song, Say A Prayer” and “Glass Building” demonstrate movement forward, while tracks such as “Dream Of Mexico” and the title track “War Planes” represent a way to look back into underlying issues and the inherited trauma that had once made Aranda feel so alone.
Produced and engineered by Desmond Shea (Tarnation, The Court And Spark) at SF’s legendary Hyde Street Studios, War Planes features the talents of friends and Tarnation bandmates, Paula Frazer (bass, vocals), David Cuetter (pedal steel), Sam Berman (drums), Patrick Main (piano, vocals), and Meryl Theo Press (vocals). Also joining the sessions were musicians Alisa Rose (violins), Jason Loeks (upright bass), and singers Karina Denike (Dance Hall Crashers), Michael James Tapscott, Lydia Walker, and Sara Gallagher (banjo, vocals).
Aranda went into the studio listening to a lot of early Waylon Jennings and Gene Clark. Ultimately, the vulnerability and softness of the songs, as well as the influence of Frazer and Shea, steered the album away from its country influences into a more psychedelic, ethereal space. Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack and Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Sessions were the two most influential albums of Aranda’s youth. The vulnerability captured in War Planes brought him back to those formative years, and the sounds that gave him comfort through a turbulent childhood. Written by Aranda and crafted throughout four years of tragedy, pandemic, death, and loss, the album is lovingly dedicated to his father, immigration rights activist Mario Aranda, who was lost to COVID-19 during the recording of the album.
