Sleep Through the Static

Personnel: Jack Johnson (vocals, guitar); Jack Johnson; Merlo Podlewski (bass guitar); Jean Pierre Plunier (hand claps, background vocals); Emmett Malloy, Josh Arroyo (hand claps); Danny Riley (background vocals); Zach Gill (vocals, keyboards); Trent Johnson (acoustic guitar); Adam Topol (drums).
Audio Mixer: Robert Carranza.
Recording information: Solar Powered Platic Plant, Los Angeles, CA; The Mango Tree, HI.
Photographers: Emmett Malloy; Branden Aroyan; Thomas Campbell.
If James Taylor was the face of '70s soft rock, then pro-surfer-turned-multi-platinum singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is surely his millennial counterpart: an easy-on-the-ears commercial juggernaut that the critics dismiss with undisguised and somewhat unjustified bile. Johnson's response to his detractors is to dig in, and with SLEEP THROUGH THE STATIC, his fifth--and best--set of soulfully mellow but emphatically hooky jams, he does just that.
Reportedly recorded on a solar-powered 8-track reel-to-reel, the songs--which, as he explains in the liner notes, concern "making babies...and raising them"--intimately reveal Johnson's newfound family bliss. He brings to the studio his touring band of drummer Adam Topol, bassist Merlo Podlewski, and keyboardist Zach Gill, who adds piano trills reminiscent of those in Nick Drake's "Pink Moon." A laidback Cali quality brims throughout cuts such as the title track and "Hope," as producer Robert Carranza keeps the sounds present but never overbearing.