Jason Grier is a songwriter, composer, and computer programmer from Los Angeles, California. He founded the Human Ear Music label in 2006, which he continues to operate in partnership with Julia Holter. He attended the California Institute of The Arts up to 1999. Since then, he has written and performed music in popular and fine arts settings while based in New York and Los Angeles.

Between 2004 and 2005 he recorded a series of six albums of unabashed pop music that traversed an imaginary career arc from proto-art-rock to adult contemporary. His pop music self-consciously recalls influences from 1970’s european ambient rock, 1980’s slam-jam funk, 90’s techno-hip-hop and “smooth jazz” styles. Following a series of live band gigs of his own music, he began performing intimate, solo arrangements of his friends’ songs.

More recently he has been interested in techniques of gestural notation, free reed instruments and early-modern piano music. His recent music is concerned with the relationship between chance occurrence, sentimentality and sacred meanings. In it he calls for a varied sound palette including Southeast Asian, African and European resonators, voice, wah-wah and specially constructed reed-vocoders.

Trauermusik: HumanEar Summer Concert Series

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Future Roots Radio: Julia Holter & Human Ear on KPFK

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