An album almost ‘too vulnerable’ to share

[Jesso, from E1] write.

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TOBIAS JESSO JR. released his second album, “Shine,” a decade after “Goon.”

(IAN SPANIER For The Times)

" It's an approach that's endeared him to his star collaborators and yielded songs as deep as Adele's "To Be Loved," a stunning meditation on the costs of divorce from her 2021 album "30.But earlier this year, for the first time in Jesso's decade of behind-the-scenes work, he found himself struggling to deliver. "I was feeling so in the dumps that I'd be choking on a line that I didn't even want to say because if I say it, I'll start crying," he recalls.

He cleared six weeks from his busy schedule to process his emotions; the result was a set of songs for himself about heartache - "I can see the love leaving from your eyes in the form of a tear," he sings in "Rain" - but also about his mom's experience with dementia and about the young son he shares with his ex-wife.

To record the music, Jesso's instinct was to go big. "I'm a dreamer, so I was like, 'Imagine all the people I could have help me now that I didn't have 10 years ago,'" he says. "I went from so-andso to so-and-so, trying out studios, making promises I couldn't keep. But all that stuff over the weeks just kind of flaked away."

What remained was the beautifully mellow sound of a vintage Steinway piano he'd had restored after buying it on Craiglist for $800. He keeps the piano in a small, uncluttered studio upstairs from the den at his house; that's where he cut "Shine," singing live as he accompanied himself in real time.