JBM

Biography

Jesse Brian Marchant, better known by his stage name JBM, is a Canadian singer-songwriter. In 2011, he signed a recording contract with American label Partisan Records.

Early life and education

Marchant was born in Montreal, Quebec. He was classically trained in guitar from the age of seven. As a young man, Marchant lived in his family's home in the American Adirondack Mountains for three years, living mostly in seclusion, to realize songs that he had written earlier in Los Angeles, California. In 2008, he recorded songs in a church studio in Hudson, New York.

Career

Marchant has toured with Nathaniel Rateliff, Rogue Wave, Avi Buffalo and Sondre Lerche. He has also performed with St. Vincent, Elvis Perkins, and Swedish singer The Tallest Man on Earth. His musical style has been compared to that of Jim James, Justin Vernon, Nick Drake, Neil Young and M. Ward.

Reception

Music critic Nick Gunther described JBM's music as instilling a "unique depth of emotion and feeling." Brittney McKenna in American Songwriter magazine wrote that there was a "level of peace and of stillness unique to a church" in Marchant's debut album and that his music "feels like one man's soft, musical prayer for hope in a world that too often has too little," and she compared his style to Thom Yorke and Neil Young. JBM's song "Ambitions & War" was described as a "honey-of-a-song" in Future Sounds magazine, with lyrics about a person who is losing their mind in Los Angeles.
Clubdistrict.com described the album as "exquisitely crafted" which feels "as weathered and wise as an old home" and which is a "mostly acoustic venture" with "atmospheric arrangements, lyrical purity and unaffected baritone." Mikela Floyd in Filter magazine described the debut album as "heartfelt compositions" reflecting "a meticulous and carefully crafted sound" from a "handcrafted talent." Steven Mansmith in Slowcoustic described the album as "a fantastic album" of 2010 and noted that the video by Brody Baker accompanying JBM's song Not Even in July, with "images of strewn lawn chairs, sunsets and searching through a dark forest" was a "great video for a great song."

Personal life

As of 2011, he lived in Brooklyn, New York; Los Angeles; and Upstate New York.