"If you feel you’ve been going through the motions, take your hands and just let go." twenty-one year old Tulsa native, Jonathan Van Risseghem sings on his new full length release, The Motions. The motion of his music career has greatly accelerated recently, as he experiences a fast growing following throughout the Midwest. His intelligent lyrics and sparkling guitars, highlighted by an incomparably honest vocal performance, have quickly created engaging live performances in regional venues over the past year. Compiled of veterans in the Midwestern music scene, Van Risseghem has performed with many artists of national and regional acclaim.
Jonathan is backed by one of the most solid live bands on the road today. Lead guitarist Alex Coleman, generates a pure vintage sound through his rig, Joshua Davidson cuts through with his driving bass, Barak Tschirhart adds rich textures of organs, pianos, along with a variety of brass instruments, and drummer Casey Meyering takes no prisoners with his intimidating percussive work.
Van Risseghem's song craft shows no sign of artistic compromise, but rather a deepening of signature aesthetics and concise songwriting galvanized into a high-energy live show. Like a painter who masters the fundamentals of drafting before becoming an Expressionist or Cubist, Jonathan leverages solid lyricism as a foundation on which to build the colorful melodious constructions of the imagination.
Perhaps it's something about the excessively commercial nature of pop music these days that make people want to reach back in time. Or, maybe it is just the music itself – spirited, direct, colorful. Whatever it is, Van Risseghem taps that energy of yesterday’s music with it’s tones and rhythms, producing a rich-textured sound topped off with an engaging vocal delivery. He joins these solid arrangements with ear catching melodies in any chart topper of today’s music.
"Easily one of the most engaging pop records to emerge in the first quarter of the year" - Urban Tulsa
Featured Artist, February, 2009 - AmericanSongSpace.com
Song of the Week, March 1, 2009 - Z104.5 The Edge
