There comes a time in every artist’s career when he disconnects himself from the public. Fans, friends, critics – they’ll all be left behind in the creative process. When that break happens, it’s both liberating and terrifying. With On My Way To Absence, Damien Jurado has made such a break. He hung up the phone and left it lying on the counter, and in the process has created a quintessential Jurado piece of work – a masterpiece by one of today’s most incredible voices. Stripped of any inclination or genre-adopting, On My Way To Absence is the sound of Jurado and long-time collaborator Eric Fisher locked in a mental space for four months, periodically inviting friends (Rosie Thomas, Crooked Fingers frontman Eric Bachmann, and familiar faces Josh Golden, Seth Warren, David Broecker, Casey Foubert and Andy Myers) to contribute to the piece. Stripped of a hope to please, Jurado journeyed inward, veering into darker and darker territory. In the same manner that Nick ! Cave, Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch consistently write songs that sound stoked in the fires of time, Jurado creates songs that sound old not because he’s mastered the structure of old-timey music, but rather because he’s captured a particular primal essence. He finds the quick truth and he sings it from his gut. Such is the magic of Damien Jurado.