JATK – In Spite Of Us All

That process, and all its zigs and zags over the course of the day, is at the combustible core of JATK’s rowdy new single, a boisterous shot of power-pop and alt-rock called “Feel Today!,” crashing the streams via three-track maxi-single on Friday, October 2. A few weeks later, the music video hits the screens on October 21. 

With its unbridled energy, “Feel Today!” marks the first new music from Matt Jatkola’s collaborative project in three years, and sets a feisty tone for forthcoming album Fast But in Slow Motion, the follow-up to 2022 breakout record Shut Up and Be the Light, set for release in Spring 2027. 

Of course, springtime feels like a decade away, especially at a time when the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like months. So JATK is here to drop a soundtrack on all of life’s craziness – and our personal crash-outs, complete with a few – much needed – moments of peaceful levity.    

“‘Feel Today!’ is about feeling apathetic, uninspired, alone, and tired in a world that takes, expects, and doesn’t always give much back,” Jatkola says. “At least, that’s how it feels sometimes. It’s a messed-up place and I feel messed up in it; this song is a reflection of that. There’s a bit of dry humor here and there, and there’s a twinge of hope, too.” 

Playing fast and loose, “Feel Today!” is an unhinged rock and roll banger that captures JATK’s propulsive, swirling sound wrapped tightly around a melodic pop core. Buoyed by an anthemic and energetic chorus refrain of “I feel so tired / I feel alone and messed up / So uninspired / But I feel the way I feel today, now,” it’s the lead track to the forthcoming album, which plays out with a heavy dose of theatrical drama. 

Positioned as the album’s opening track in addition to its first single “Feel Today!” sets the tone; especially when midway through, as the bridge hits, the distortion and panicked energy give way to an orchestral sense of hope and escapism.    

“Strings enter, the perspective goes from ‘I’ to ‘we’, and it kind of romanticizes finding a better way of life, where you’re not shackled by societal expectations,” Jatkola reasons. “I don’t want to be pigeon-holed, as a person or as an artist, so there’s a bit of rallying against that going on here. Yelling ‘I feel so tired!’ is a lot different than saying ‘I feel so tired’. You get to a certain point of feeling checked out where you almost come out the other side and scream about how checked out you are. It’s full circle in that way. I like to think this song expresses that.”

Jatkola says “Feel Today!” is “very much a live band song and JATK is a band,” making it the perfect choice to kickstart a new era. Where the debut album was assembled remotely by its various contributors during the pandemic, feeding off Jatkola’s core vision and songwriting, featuring different players on each track and bringing the overall vibe together during the mixing process, the new tunes, including this single, showcase the core JATK band. 

Joining Jatkola (vocals, guitar, programming, samples) are Megan DiSciscio (vocals, keys, synthesizer, viola, string arrangement), Bryan Mastergeorge (guitar), Evan Murphy (drums), and Kiel Szivos (bass). “Feel Today!” also features Eden Rayz on cello, Alexandra Zablotsky on violin, and backing vocals from Rivir and Abby Geddes. 

“Recording the live strings was especially rewarding,” Jatkola adds. “Our friend Ross Matthei engineered those at my home studio [Peace & Love Laboratories] and it was really exciting. My bandmate Megan DiSciscio did the arrangement and played viola, her colleague Alexandra Zablotsky played violin, and Eden Rayz played cello. They all did a fantastic job and it was very cool to record strings at my place for the first time ever.” 

That full-band element is on full display in the “Feel Today!” music video, directed by Jackson Pollaro, an up-and-coming filmmaker and student of long-time JATK collaborator Jean-Paul DiSciscio, who directed the visual for “Don’t Come Knockin’”. 

“While there are plenty of overdubs and varied production techniques used throughout this particular track – we really tried to juxtapose lo-fi and hi-fi sounds – at its core it’s everyone playing real instruments together as a band,” Jatkola admits. “Most of the album is like that, which I can say was not the case with Shut Up and Be the Light.” 

Alongside a visual theme of an egg, which graces the maxi-single cover and its importance to be revealed with subsequent singles and releases, the live performance shots were filmed at Bancroft’s Castle in the central Massachusetts town of Groton, a historical site that dates back to 1906, carrying on as everything from a lavish retirement home to sanatorium to social club. It burned down in 1932 after a firecracker incident, and its core remains standing as a community space a short walk off the nearby main road.  

“I feel like its varied past somehow meshes with the varied production styles within the song,” Jatkola adds.“We leaned into Jackson’s affinity for using a mix of modern cameras with those from the ‘90s and early 2000s to give it a certain look and feel — like a skateboarding video from that era, just without the skateboarding. The mix of low and high fidelity visuals from the various cameras matches the same mix of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds we were going for in the music.” 

One of the first new tracks recorded for the album and based around a distorted scratch-vocal demo Jatkola recorded on a handheld SM57, “Feel Today!” was ultimately recorded all over Massachusetts: By Adam Taylor at Bang-A-Song Studios in Gloucester; Jatkola at his Peace & Love Laboratories, Arlington; Evan Murphy at Ombic Sound, Worcester, MA; and Ross Matthei at Peace & Love Laboratories, Westminster. It was mixed by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studios in Allston.

“This one is a production tour de force,” Jatkola notes, “which is a bit funny because it comes across as a very loose, noisy, raw song – and it is — but there’s a lot that happened behind the scenes to put it all together.” 

That includes the dramatic shift in the bridge as this power-pop banger abruptly changes course – kinda like our moods these days from one minute to the next – to a rather hopeful and inspiring composition, aided by cello, violin, and keyboards that Jatkola loved so much he bumped-out as a stand-alone 87-second b-side to highlight their magnetism. 

“The bridge is my favorite,” Jatkola admits. “We have a hard cut from this noisy punky energy to just vocals and Wurlitzer. Then the strings come in (and the screams), key change, and a revelation for the equation for the universe (‘Nothing = Everything + Time’). Then you slam back into the final chorus. What more could you want!?”