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It’s been a minute since we bathed in the delicious rays of Jack Vinoy’s genreless pop and wow – does it feel good. Watching from afar, its hard to diagnose all the influences that make up Jack’s refreshing sound, but the result is something to soak in, a true multi sensory problem to leave unsolved but enjoy in the process. Still, why try to filter, let’s let the Nashville-based man speak for himself as he walks us track-by-track through his latest album, RELAY. 

Track 1: CUT SCENE

I love an intro, it feels like it helps focus the narrative of an album. With CUT SCENE, the lyrics are minimal but exactly what I want the album to convey: community. ‘I got you, always’ are the only words I sing here, but that’s to draw focus - if you need support, I’m here. I was really excited with the hopeful & nostalgic feeling track Wowjus7in and I were able to build. I get chills listening back to where we put in vocals from 15 or 20 of my friends shouting RELAY, that’s my favorite part of this song. There’s morse code of the word RELAY in this track too that makes another appearance later in the album, tying in with the satellite imagery used for a lot of the album visuals. I know the nature of people’s listening habits, intros often don’t usually make the re-listen, so it only felt right to call this my CUT SCENE.

Track 2: NEW SUPPLY

My desk is covered in shit all the time - audio cables, Pokemon collectibles, pens, notepads, and keyboards, but one of the most tenured desk ornaments I’ve got is this rock with the word ‘JOY’ written on it in silver sharpie. When my brain is cooperative, I’m usually trying to keep that in there as a mantra and look for things to be happy about - I think it’s generally pretty optimistic but it could also be a sign my Prozac dosage needs a boost, who knows. NEW SUPPLY is about making the most out of nothing, looking for beauty in everything. and not letting old shit bring you down. 

As a producer I make a lot of sample loops to send to other artists & producers for placement opportunities, and this song was one of the first times I sampled myself. I had about a minute of guitar, bass, and theremin recorded and arranged, which was then chopped up by Wowjus7in and I into the structure you hear on the final version of the song. Originally we made the beat, and put this Metro Boomin-esque drum programming on it and sent it to Chuck Indigo to see if he’d want to write to it. I’m glad he didn’t end up using it because after we put some new drums on it and a new bass line from Andrew Twining, I felt inspired to write to it, and NEW SUPPLY was born. To bring it full circle I had to get Chuck Indigo involved with the song, singing background vocals on this one with Claire Maisto. And since there was already no sense in making a clean version with that hook being what it is, I used a sample of Lilac Jun  dropping the album name and his favorite sentence enhancer.

Track 3: ROTATE

Definitely the angriest song I’ve made to this point. I love punk sh*t, and always want to write some, but I just don’t feel like I’m angry enough. Something was different for this one, and me screaming that end part is my favorite thing to do when I perform - until the next day when my vocal cords aren’t happy about it. Lyrically this one kind of rides the line with parts of it giving a loud voice to my internal critics, and other parts giving full overconfidence.

The beat switch features another sample I made, I had recorded this 1970s sounding arrangement with a guitar, bass, drums, and some textural vocals to my tape machine, which was then chopped & looped to create the frame. Andrew Twining added some drum programming, I played in a bunch of distorted guitars which Brent Hendrich helped engineer, and with Noozi’s background vocals and some additional pop-punk scream vocals from Buda, it was complete.

Track 4: VAGABOND

Peter Brooks was my first friend I made when I moved to Nashville in 2015, and has released like 15 tapes on Bandcamp (and I literally mean tapes, he records everything to cassette tape, it’s so badass). He gave me permission to sample anything from his catalog, and this is where the musical themes in VAGABOND come from.

This is like my Jackson Pollack type beat. When I program drums, I love heavy swing on drums, and on this one I added probably the most I’ve ever had on a song. I got those crazy drums going and chopped up one of Peter’s songs called ‘Moody Marcel’ over top of it. With a few extra guitars and 808s the track was built. I did my best Talking Heads inspired lyric writing to fit the weird little vibe we had here, and later on Jordan Xx came in and matched that energy perfectly with his verse.

Track 5: BATON PASS

I grew up on Odd Future, so I love a posse cut. Ron Obasi, Chuck Indigo, and Dimestate Don are three of my favorite artists in Nashville and it only felt right to get everybody together on a track for the album. This track was the joint effort of myself and 8 other collaborators, the most on any single song on the album, so BATON PASS felt like the perfect name for it. That name initially came from the move in the Pokémon games I played all the time growing up - it’s essentially a big ‘rising tide lifts all ships’ vibe.  

My writing on this one was an idea I’d been carrying around for a while and tried on other instrumentals but couldn’t find the right fit, and all of sudden it found a home. Ron Obasi and Chuck Indigo came over to my home studio to record their verses, with Chuck for some reason leading us in doing some push-ups to get in the zone, and later on Dimestate Don recorded her verse, but I still felt like we needed a dramatic end to the song. With some additional vocals from Jah Frida and Disc2, I think we found the balance, and on the outro, I sampled a video of Brian Brown from one of my ca.mp3 events, where he, without knowing about the song, talked about metaphorically passing the baton, which was pretty convenient timing.

Track 6: EVEREST HEIGHTS

I actually made this beat in Saint Petersburg, Florida when I was visiting my parents for Christmas in 2022. I remember thinking ‘I don’t really give a shit what I say on this song, I think it’ll turn out great anyway because the beat is so nice’. Fortunately I think I found something nice to say on it too. This one is about being in the moment, something I’m not fantastic about all the time. After I’d recorded all my vocals to this one, Noozi came in and added those amazing background vocals. I met her years ago at a session, I thought she had an incredible voice but after watching her record and being so perfectly on pitch that the engineer didn’t really have to tune her vocals, I was like ‘OK, I’ve definitely got to work with her’.

Track 7: BRINK

Jordan Xx and I were working on some music, and he was going through this folder of beats he’d been sent over the years. This one from Sir Illington, who is another Nashville-based artist & producer, really stood out to me and I had to have it - fortunately the track hadn’t been officially claimed yet. I added some more guitars and programming over top of it to finalize the track, pulled together verse lyrics from a handful my iPhone notes, and then had Claire Maisto add the hook. It’s about how I feel like it’s only a matter of time before my friends and I get to the point of providing for ourselves off our art, and on a broader scale feeling like the whole underground scene in Nashville is about to be a point of discussion internationally because of how many incredible artists are coming up from here right now.

 Track 8: PORCELAIN

Back in probably 2018 or 2019 I had a session where there was this baritone guitar sitting around the studio, and I recorded that basic guitar loop that would become the backbone of PORCELAIN. I always thought it was nice but didn’t really try to make anything out of it until 2022. Lyrically it chronicles a lot of great memories with my girlfriend, and bits and pieces of it are about how ambitious I am to make this career work for me; this track is the only one on the album I did completely by myself outside of mixing & mastering, but it felt right to do it that way with the lyrical content.

Track 9: DIAMOND BEACH

DIAMOND BEACH came together really quickly, Cam Herring and I built that track in one afternoon, and the next morning I had written and tracked all the vocals. It’s the first song that was finished for the album, and is named after this beach in Iceland where icebergs wash up on the sand, I got to visit it a couple years ago and it was pretty amazing. I love the beachy vibe of this song, so it felt right to name it after a beach.

Track 10: FRONT


There’s always some people who come and go with less than genuine intentions, looking at relationships like a transaction to elevate themselves - FRONT is about some experiences I’ve had with that. There’s always a facade, so FRONT felt like an appropriate title, and the added irony of the main word throughout the song being ‘back’ was an extra plus.

Don Keller made the bulk of the instrumental, what really stood out to me was that chord progression - he’s a genius on the keys. I recorded some guitars and did a bit of programming, Tahina Fiaferana brought the great guitar textures on the hook, and Fesssi K added in some background vocals and it was finished.

Also, I’ve got to stop writing sub-2 minute songs. I was listening to the new Decemberists album and there’s a 19 minute song on there called ‘Joan in the Garden’ that’s like half the length of my album. You could listen to FRONT like 10 times in the time you could listen to that one song - which I would actually really appreciate because streaming doesn’t pay shit.

 Track 11: JESUS WEPT

A lot of my writing is just me venting, and this track is the perfect example. I love this expression, JESUS WEPT, I learned it a few years ago but it’s basically like an insincere ‘tough shit’. I’m kind of just complaining about bullshit with this one. While we’re here, I’ll complain some more about one of the most annoying things that happened that I talk about in this song. I had asked for a (reasonable) raise at one of my jobs and not only did they not give me the raise but they also cut my hours, which was awesome! I really loved that. 

The instrumental is mainly built around this guitar loop I made and ran through the Boss SP-303 (which I regretfully sold) to manually make that pitch shift, so it’s basically one chord hitting and me spinning the pitch dial to get to that second chord.

I think this hook is one of the strongest ones on the album, and it definitely holds my current personal record for ‘most words in least amount of space’. My favorite line from this one is the bridge though, the ‘low money / ramen in an alleyway’ bit. I’ve been full time doing random freelance A/V & IT work for the past few years and one of the stranger jobs I got hired for was to close out this music store and venue, basically just packing up unsold inventory and taking down the stage and lighting fixture. This place was a mess and it was during the height of COVID, so when we ate we had to go outside to unmask, and the only spot to do that was in the alleyway behind the building. I’d microwave my ramen and take the bowl out back and try to find some garbage to sit on while I ate, definitely some very early-20s shit to do.

Track 12: LEMON + HONEY

This is of my favorites to perform because of how uptempo it is, it’s just like 2.5 minutes of bouncing around on stage. I was really excited about how this track came together, I chopped a sample from my friend Andrew Twining, who at the time lived in Michigan, used a drum loop my friend Engless, who’s this incredible producer from Ukraine I discovered on Youtube a few years ago, and then got some synth textures from my friend Dougy who lives in Chicago. It was a cool process of putting together all these pieces for a big remote collaboration on that production. Andrew actually ended up moving to Nashville shortly after I started this track and he added some extra pieces in person when he moved here.

Having a song with Brian Brown is still really cool to me, he was the first Nashville artist’s music I remember connecting to when I moved here years ago, and when I finally got to work with him I was like ‘did I just make it?’. He’s kind of a legend of the scene here, and has been putting out amazing quality work for over a decade now. 

Track 13: NO PLOT ARMOR

Out of all the songs on the album, NO PLOT ARMOR is probably the one that means the most to me. The lyrics just sort of all arrived at once in a notes app stream of consciousness, which I feel like rarely happens but when it does, I know I’ve got something. When we’re younger we have this sense of invincibility, and when I was 20 it started to fade. Life is delicate and things can change in an instant, so I think it’s really important to enjoy the ride while you’re on it. Tell people you care about them and give yourself the opportunity to actually go get what you want in life because nothing is more than a step or two away. 

The production around it is centered on this simple piano part I recorded at my friend Lilac Jun’s studio. It goes through some different repeats and processing changes, but ultimately stays consistent as a baseline. I wanted it to reflect life with the piano being daily routine, and the glitches representing the unpredictable nature of changes that eventually fade and settle back to routine. 

Track 14: VILLAGE

Lyrically VILLAGE feels like it’s the cornerstone RELAY, I’m singing all about the community I’m a part of in Nashville. The underground music scene here is incredible and people are really supportive of each other, it’s unlike any other scene I’ve been a part of and I genuinely feel like there’s space for all of us to succeed. 

The track was made in a jam session by Disc2, Tahina Fiaferana and I. Disc2 was on the drum kit in my studio and Tahina was playing guitar. Fortunately I’d thrown a microphone up in the room before they started playing, because they hit what became main riff one time and I ended up cutting off the jam to be like ‘that’s the one’ and we started building around that loop immediately. With some chops of the new ‘sample’, some added drum programming, a pitched up vocal from me and another guitar layer from Tahina, we were pretty much done with the track and I started writing. I took my time writing with this one because I wanted to make sure to really capture how I felt about the scene here.

Alien did those incredible background vocals, Disc2 added some as well, and Andrew Twining added a bit of piano and we were about done with the track, with the last addition being a recording of my grandfather echoing the sentiments of being there to support each other and spending time together. 

I had started a sort of archival project a few years with my grandparents to preserve some of their favorite stories on video so that they could live on forever. I have a couple cousins that are a full 20 years younger than me that may not be able to understand some of these stories now, but I wanted to be able to share them with them later in their lives.

Track 15:
ALWAYS FOREVER

People talk about metaphorically putting a bow on things to finish them, and ALWAYS FOREVER felt like the perfect bow on RELAY. This is one of my favorite instrumentals Wowjus7in has ever made, and he sends me probably 5 beats a day. This is sort of a love song to my friends, and how they have helped me through a lot. Beyond that, there’s a lot of well-wishing for self improvement, safety, and success for myself and the people around me. Grace Lee’s background vocals on the hooks really elevated the song for me. Not only is her voice incredible, but living on the same street as her and her roommates for a year, I saw that they had this same kind of love in their friend group, so it was really special to have someone who I felt like could totally relate to that feeling sing on this with me.

And that’s the album! 39 minutes, 15 songs, 28 collaborators, and a couple years. Making this was an amazing process and created a lot of memories I’ll cherish for years.