Skyway Man & Andy Jenkins - Nothing No. 1 (2022) Hi-Res

“The tape is real but this cover isn’t.” So read the 15 limited-run, J-card inserts that Richmond-based singer-songwriter Andy Jenkins designed at the last minute when the official inserts didn’t arrive in time for the June pre-release show he and Oakland-based singer-songwriter-producer James Wallace played at Black Iris Social Club in celebration of their new collaborative EP, “Nothing No. 1.”

Then again, Wallace and Jenkins are comfortable with the uncanny. Wallace is known in indie music circles as Skyway Man, and his prior releases have carved out a psychedelic spirituality that sounds like it could have formed from the dust of some distant nebula, or from the murk of a vast, underground river untouched by humans. Jenkins' wordboth in the verses he lends to other artists’ songs and the music he releases under his own name, invite you to look at familiar images – flowers, sunlight, shadow – from unexpected angles.

Jenkins sings it this way in the title track of the EP, out July 29 on Mama Bird Recording Co.: “Somewhere the earth is cold / Somewhere it is burning / I am but a stranger here.”