Windser
When Jordan Topf was just seven years old, his father abandoned him in a hotel room in Costa Rica. With the bleary shock of a polaroid flashbulb, Topf pulls the memory into clarity: his dad joining a woman he’d just met on a motorcycle ride, and leaving him behind, alone, for 24 hours. "I remember the sound of the engine roaring and dust flying, sitting at the hotel pool, half submerged as my heart sank," Topf says. “I crawled into a creaky bed in the darkness, alone, more alone than I'd ever felt. Thousands of miles away from home, in a country where I didn't speak the language." That trauma lived in the back of Topf’s mind for years until he found a path forward: writing a song about it called “Abandon”, the lead single from his self-titled debut as Windser (due May 14th). "I had to set myself free from the pain," he said. “I allowed myself to feel openly and truthfully, to write something that could help me understand my father and how I’d suppressed these feelings for so long."
As he recently sought help and started writing about it, the greater story of his childhood flooded in. Not coincidentally, Topf got his first guitar the same summer of that traumatic day. And as he shuttled between his parents’ homes, music was a companion and comfort. That fact continues on Windser, as the explosive flashpoint of “Abandon” acts as the blueprint for a wider burst of emotionally resonant indie rock as freeing for its creator as its audience.
As a veteran of other bands and a former tourmate of the likes of Portugal. The Man and alt-J, Topf has proven himself masterfully capable of translating those deep emotional moments in grand indie rock scale. The lead single and opening track of Windser, “Abandon” recounts the childhood trauma that kicked off Topf’s therapeutic creativity. "Recording this song felt like the beginning of a new chapter,” he says. “I would come home after therapy powered by a desire to make sense of it and turn it into something hopeful." While Topf wrote methodically for his previous EP and singles, here he laid down an atmospheric, psychedelic groove with Radiohead-esque effected guitars, and then let the verses tumble out of his mouth.
“You never loved me much,” he repeats at the chorus, like the mantric acceptance beyond the end of a relationship. Pairing intensely personal storytelling and lyricism with sky-cracking hooks propels Windser, Topf leading listeners through his diary but making them feel like it’s their own. “These are stories I’ve never told, shared in a way I’ve never shared, played in a way I’ve never played,” he says. “I needed to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. The songs deserved a certain level of care, so instead of working in my home studio, we rented John Congleton’s Los Angeles studio, Animal Rites, and invited all my favorite musicians to record.” Topf co-produced the record alongside Matias Tellez (Girl in Red, Sondre Lerche) and Jon Gilbert (Mt. Joy, Flipturn), with Dan Bailey and Adam Christgau on drums, Daniel Rhine on bass, Harrison Whitford on guitar, and Jerry Borge on keys. For each track, Topf and his producers would play the group a demo for the first time and then let them improvise and build out their own version in the moment. “I wanted everyone to react to a gut instinct and then capture the musical conversation,” he says.
As the tracks accumulated, Topf realized he’d written 30 songs, and narrowed down to 11 in the studio. To ensure a cinematic scope that matched his massive feelings, he decided to take those recordings out on runs through rugged Northern California and long drives along the coast. Topf leans on his experience, infusing a wide-screen indie approach with unexpected bursts of electronic and art rock instrumentation.
On the thrumming “These Days”, Topf turns pained emotions (“I’m so bored/ I’m depressed/ I’m a mess/ These days”) into a carbonated hook. The drums thump out like heavy footfalls on asphalt, Topf’s voice reaching higher chords as the track races towards a cliff. On the similarly propulsive “Lose You”, Topf tries to cling onto the last bits of a fading love in a soaring falsetto reminiscent of Band of Horses: “I want you one more time before I lose you.” Topf co-wrote the track with Day Wave frontman Jackson Phillips, the duo unlocking their best postpunk shuffle to support yet another instance of Windser turning a painful moment into an epic hook.
Through its hard-hitting songwriting and compelling instrumentation, Windser reflects all he’s been through, holding the mirror up so listeners can explore their own past too. To that end, album highlight “Backyard” works almost like a sequel to “Abandon”; no longer stuck in the moments of his past, Topf can now chart his path forward. Co-written with Morgan Nagler, herself a co-writer of Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, the track finds Topf looking out the back window of his home, his mind literally racing from memory to memory until it reaches a conclusion. “It’s about realizing you’re a product of your parents, your environment, but also that you get to decide if you’re going to repeat family history or change,” he says.
Both in his life leading up to this debut and through the album itself, Topf has learned how to grow into himself—how to face the pain and embrace the beauty.
Across Windser, he shares his journey of coming to an understanding of his relationship with his father, of the pain in his past, of becoming more aware of his own emotions. But thankfully it didn’t end there. “I had reached a ceiling and I was cracked wide open, but I also reached the point of finding everlasting love as a means of safety, security, and changing the course of my family history,” he says. The dreamy ballad “Shut Up and Kiss Me” honors that love, a track that will go down in the annals of indie love songs. Borge’s bubbling blocks of piano chords and Topf’s airy falsetto recall the Plastic Ono Band, Whitford’s crystalline guitar solo pulling the Lennon strings tighter. Topf wrote the song for his wife, the pair having freshly married after a decade together. “It’s her favorite song on the album,” he smiles. “It’s about those moments where you’ve been away from someone for too long and there are no words for when you are reunited.” And after the exploration of pain in his past, the track highlights the timeless emotion that only Windser can reach: the freeing power of love, and how the world comes together when it’s right.
