The reign of Montaigne

Well-read, well-spoken and a skilled writer, Jessica Cerro, aka Montaigne, is much more than just an amazing singer

Singer-songwriter Montaigne, aka Jess Cerro. Picture: Ryan Osland

It was the question that sent Jessica Cerro’s mind in a spin: if you suddenly became deaf, what career would you choose? This wasn’t a casual hypothetical tossed into an ordinary conversation between friends, either: it was asked by one of her teachers during a French speaking exam in her final year of high school.

To further complicate matters, it wasn’t on the list of prepared questions that she had studied ahead of the test, either. To call it a curveball is an understatement, as for Cerro, music — hearing, sound, melodies, harmonies — is firmly lodged at the centre of her life.

“This was like an existential question for me,” Cerro tells Review when thinking back to that French exam. “He knew how much I wanted to be a singer and songwriter, but I don’t think he understood the gravity of the question when he asked it. If I did go deaf, what the f..k would I do? That’s the nightmare scenario, right there.”

While still studying her Higher School Certificate in Sydney, her song Anyone But Me was a finalist in Triple J’s Unearthed High talent search; at 16, she signed a publishing deal with Albert Music, the family company whose roots are firmly embedded in the foundations of popular Australian music.

As much as that vivid memory mid-exam still pains her, the thorny question has remained thankfully hypothetical. For the rest of us, the rewards associated with Cerro’s ears, throat, lungs and mouth have been both plentiful and widely enjoyed. Her debut album, Glorious Heights, was released in August 2016 and peaked at No 4 on the ARIA chart, although it was a single released in February of the same year that introduced her remarkable voice to a wide audience.

Written and recorded by Adelaide hip-hop trio Hilltop Hoods, the track, 1955, addresses living in a place where progress occurs slowly, if at all — a sensation commonly felt by adolescents in small towns who feel trapped and itching to escape. In its chorus, Cerro’s character-filled vocal coats the song’s intentionally sepia-toned canvas with a splash of colour as she sings:

We’re living in the days when everybody’s saying

‘What a time to be alive’

But I’m feeling out of place like I live in outer space

’Cause it seems I’m stuck in time …

Singer-songwriter Montaigne, aka Jess Cerro. Picture: Ryan Osland

Memorable, relatable and brimming with personality, 1955 has gone on to become one of the group’s signature songs. It reached No 4 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of 2016 and has been accredited six times platinum by ARIA, while Montaigne — Cerro’s stage name — has joined Hilltop Hoods in concert on several occasions.

That guest appearance with the nation’s best-selling hip-hop act in 2016 offered an ideal platform for thousands of listeners to discover Cerro’s own indie pop songwriting and performance style. Her year culminated with a pointy silver statue for best breakthrough artist at the 2016 ARIA Awards, as well as a string of sold-out tours and prominent festival bookings.

All signs were pointing towards her star being on the swift ascent, yet such glorious heights led to a rather dramatic crash. Looking back through her journals from this time, Cerro can now track a growing and ultimately consuming sense of burnout — or, as the singer-songwriter succinctly puts it with a rueful laugh: “2017 Jess was a hot mess.”

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Fittingly for an artist whose stage name was inspired by French Renaissance philosopher and essayist Michel de Montaigne, Cerro is a linguistic triple threat: she is well-read, well-spoken and a skilled writer. These three qualities rarely overlap in the general population, let alone among songwriters, who aren’t always open to discussing — or even able to articulate — the specifics of their creative process.

Cerro, then, is a cheerful exception. Her verbosity and honesty also happen to align with one of her namesake’s key concepts: that of being self-aware and introspective, and of constantly trying to improve upon oneself while remaining open to new ideas. Her favourite quote of his? “Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies. Even on the highest throne in the world, we are seated still upon our arses.”

Unusually and perhaps uniquely among ARIA award-winning artists, Cerro has also been recording and sharing her inner monologue on a semi-regular basis ahead of the release of her second album. Her podcast, Insane in the Montaigne, consists of the singer-songwriter speaking in a stream of consciousness for about a half-hour at a time, reflecting on what she’s been reading, listening to, experiencing and writing about.

The first episode was published in May 2017, and episode 31 went out earlier this month, in part as a tactic for keeping her mind off the pain of an ankle injury incurred while rock-climbing. Frank, explicit and largely unfiltered, the podcast helps form a striking portrait of an artist continually questioning and coming to terms with her place in the world.

For those who already appreciate Cerro’s music, it’s not essential listening; in fact, some might find that these monologues peel back the curtain a little too far, by offering too much information and breaking the spell of mystique that many performers work hard to cultivate. Aloofness is clearly not of interest to Cerro, however, so it’s no surprise that those fans who have invested in the podcast feel particularly attuned to Montaigne as a public figure.

Even as she acknowledges that recording those occasional podcast episodes is a kind of performance in itself, the intimate nature of the medium — often recorded alone in her bedroom late at night — means the singer-songwriter reveals much more of herself here than she does on stage between songs, or in the carefully constructed posts on her social media accounts.

That sense of bone-deep exhaustion following her breakout year was captured midway through the podcast, too. Constant struggles with body image and calorie-counting saw 2017’s “hot mess Jess” playing three futsal games and an AFL game while running an additional 20km each week.

“I was so f..king unconscionably fit; I was terrifyingly fit,” she recalls. “On stage, it was a weapon because I could just sing anything and not be short of breath, and move about like a crazy maniac. I was eating more than the average person, but I wasn’t eating enough for what I was doing.

“So that was one part of it,” she says. “Another part of it was that I was touring and travelling heaps, and never being in one place, so things were unstable. I was very stressed all the time that I was a broken person that didn’t belong anywhere. I think it was the compounding of all these stressors, both physical and mental, external and internal — and then one day my body just shut down.”

Cerro was forced to lay low for an extended period, prompting cancellations, soul-searching and plenty of free time, which in turn fed into Insane in the Montaigne.

“I think that process of doing the podcast has helped me fortify my relationship with myself, because I’m constantly talking to myself,” she says. “And when you’re putting it down (in a recording), as well, you get the perspective to be able to see exactly the way you’re addressing yourself — and if you’re addressing yourself unkindly, you have to question why, and whether that’s actually helpful or useful to you.”

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Taken together, the 13 songs of second album Complex form a kaleidoscope of striking pop songwriting, and a significant evolution from her debut collection of three years earlier. The bones of the songs are most often set by piano chords and synth lines, with electronic and acoustic beats adding colour and propulsion, but Cerro’s singular voice and melodic sensibility are undoubtedly the stars of the show.

“Even in the last couple of days, I was like, ‘Shit, my voice has changed again, and I can do more things’,” she says. “My range is better, my control of my voice is better; I can do more things with it, and I can sing a lot of different ways. I enunciate better; if you listen to my singing from the Life of Montaigne EP (released in 2014), I sound like a child who didn’t want to open her mouth. I’m now at the point that I always wanted to be at, and thought I could never get to. So anything more than this is f..king sick; it’s like the cherry on top.”

As captured on early episodes of her podcast, the original concept for Complex was to chronicle the demise and aftermath of a significant romantic relationship. The title track, for instance, is rooted in the true story of her ex-partner believing himself to be a holy man and a prophet.

As well, that initial theme is evident on the compelling first single, For Your Love, where pitch-shifted vocals combine with an insistent bassline to create a mesmeric, whirlpool-like effect. “I will be here when you wake / Fit into me like a glove,” she sings in a high, stressed voice. “Pliant, robotic / For your love / Jesus Christ / For your love …”

That thread continues through mid-album track Stockholm Syndrome, whose sickly sweet repeated chorus and claustrophobic percussion seem designed to mimic the lasting effects of an abusive, manipulative partnership. While writing, however, Cerro found that her feelings towards that original concept had cooled, and so she began widening the aperture of her artistic lens.

Her love for role-playing video games such as Kingdom Hearts and The Legend of Zelda is the inspiration for a fantasy romp named The Dying Song. “What if I only got a single life? / What if I trip and fall upon my knife?” she sings in its pre-chorus. “What if the world is meant for doom and gloom? / Guess at the end you can sing this tune.”

Elsewhere, she reflects on being dogged by body image issues — “Every day I wake up and measure the skin around my waist,” she sings in the opening lines of Is This All I Am Good For? — while the hopeful shoots of a new romantic interest are evident in Love Might Be Found (Volcano), too.

In sum, Complex is a delightful exploration of a young woman’s examined life, warts and all.

Even as she strides into the future while feeling proud of her artistic and personal development, there are occasional moments that slingshot her back into the recent past. One of these callbacks took place last month, in mid-July, when Cerro’s Sunday plans included nothing more strenuous than a soccer game and reading a book in her backyard in Sydney.

Yet when US artist Chance the Rapper cancelled his headlining performance at the Splendour in the Grass music festival at short notice, Hilltop Hoods were drafted in as an emergency replacement. Naturally, the Adelaide trio asked if Montaigne wanted to make a guest appearance, to reprise her vocals on one of their most popular songs.

Cerro said yes, and hopped on an afternoon flight to the Gold Coast before being driven to the festival site near Byron Bay. That night, she opened her mouth and sang that timeless hook to 1955: “We’re living in the days when everybody’s saying, ‘What a time to be alive’...”

She took her soccer ball and book to the festival, too, so she was able to fulfil her original Sunday plans while also performing before tens of thousands of people at one of the biggest annual events in Australian music. Total time on stage? About four minutes. “It’s pretty amazing that that can just happen,” she says with a laugh. “I went home and journaled about how f..king weird my life is.”

Complex is released on Friday via Wonderlick/Sony Music. Montaigne’s national tour begins in Terrigal, NSW (November 1) and ends in Wollongong (November 30).