Sunshine Jones is the exact opposite of the superstar DJ.
There are a few people I can say that about, but none of them wear the suit so well. I think Sunshine Jones is metaphysically incapable of doing something phony or inauthentic. He’s one of those people who asks how you’re doing and it surprises you that he’s genuinely waiting to hear the answer.
As an artist, he wears his heart on his sleeve, but it’s a heart that despairs as well as loves and is pretty upfront about how it’s feeling most of the time. There’s always something more than just an album or a tour going on: he’s a man who injects a strange magic into life.
HOME is a new 42 minute documentary by Martha Traer that ostensibly covers Sunshine Jones’ 2016 Live Ground Tour. Characteristically, it’s about a lot more than can fit under this or any title. Feeling estranged from San Francisco and thus with his work, he went looking for answers on the road, in the adrenaline and pure ecstasy of the live experience — something he hadn’t done in 10 years.
“Right now is the only moment there is,” he says, and this meant finding the right equipment for “right now” as well. In a way that makes sense but doesn’t make sense, his search for “home” meant eschewing equipment he was familiar with in favor of modular gear made recently. “I don’t like the way people relate when there’s a laptop between us,” he explains. “I don’t like the way we relate when there’s a phone between us.”
Opening to a slow roll of endless roads, scenic vistas and the functional buildings of a typical mid-American farm, HOME is a film about an interesting and unusual man who has no idea why he’s interesting or unusual – an artist who happens to use electronic music as his palette.
You can stream HOME at theurgencyofchange.com using the password FALLINLOVENOTINLINE.
Stills from HOME via theurgencyofchange.com