Album Notes

"The Surreal Life (Eugene Weekly, June 18 2006): In a world saturated with slick, overproduced albums by bands who willingly sacrifice personality for commercial success, it is refreshing to know that acts like Ramon and Jessica are making a go of it and finding an audience. Based in San Francisco, this duo offers unabashedly original songs with appealingly raw, unselfconscious execution. Their music can be slow and repetitive (think Philip Glass played on a toy piano), and their lyrics sound like they were blurted out when waking up from a dream. But bands like this don't hook audiences with toe-tapping rock 'n' roll appeal; they do it with the power to provide that rare feeling that comes over you when you experience something truly unique.

Having said they are unique, it is painful to try to compare Ramon and Jessica to anyone else in an effort to locale them within the music scene. They themselves have chosen Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell and They Might Be Giants as acts to whom they'd like to be compared. These are baffling choices to me.

The closest thing I can come up with is your savant-like college housemate who could get up with his guitar and improvise crazy songs that stopped people in their tracks. He made you want him to get famous because he was so obviously a genius, but really he probably still lives with his parents. Except there are TWO people involved here, which makes the coordinated quirkiness even more remarkable. I don't think Ramon and Jessica are savants, but I do think they are musical souls who are lucky to have found each other."

--Adrienne van der Valk