Jerry Adler is an eclectic songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Below are short summaries of the bands and records of which he has been a part.

Coming out of the early 2000’s NYC scene, The Blam recorded three terrific albums, were a hit on national college radio, and toured successfully in the US and UK. Resonance magazine called the band, “a joyfully original psychedelic rock group producing glammy work on par with the best of The Shins and Supergrass,” and NME declared, “It’s quite a skill being odd. The Blam require patience before their melodies sneak into your head, but when they do they unleash a promisingly slanted noise.” Unfortunately, they weren’t quite able to ride the wave that carried numerous others to greater recognition at that time and the group dissolved in 2005. Due to prominent placements over the years in hit TV shows such as The Office and Skins, the band has cultivated a small and dedicated cult following.

Leaving behind the bouncy, psychedelic, indie pop of The Blam, Adler returned the next year with something completely different. “After The Blam, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to make music anymore, or any art, for that matter,” he says. “And if I did, I didn’t know if what I wanted to say would or should be in the format of a three-minute pop song. So I just let it go and didn’t think about it much, until the urge returned. One day I picked up an acoustic guitar and a month later there were 25 songs.” Flugente (2006–10), captured on two albums but best exemplified in live performances that bordered on performance art, was an austere, one man / one voice, lyrical torrent of withering self-reflection and social criticism. Lucid Culture magazine said, “Quietly brilliant debut album from Jerry Adler, frontman of highly regarded indie rockers, The Blam… This is a killer 3am album, the musical equivalent of The Sun Also Rises for a new generation.”

In 2011, after side tracks that included learning to play the ukulele (to make an instrumental record for his newborn daughter) and pedal steel guitar, Adler made yet another 90-degree turn with Wave Sleep Wave, a deeply experimental, loop-based, guitar and drums duo with Yuval Lion (Cibo Matto, Suzanne Vega, The Blam). They produced two fine albums, toured with Balkan Beat Box, and landed on a handful of critics’ “Best of the Year” lists. PopMatters said, “Wave Sleep Wave is an expansive, grinding, haunting album, sounding as much like a Spaghetti Western soundtrack as a dingy basement show.” But, by 2014 Adler and Lion were living in different cities and continuing the band became unsustainable.

Ever restless, Adler’s guitar experimentation in Wave Sleep Wave would lead him to join with classical sitar player Mustafa Bhagat (Biryani Boys) and form Arranged Marriage NP, in 2016. The instrumental duo relies on the Indian raga canon for its material, but replaces the traditional tabla drum with a whirling, swirling galaxy of sound to produce what The Big Takeover called, “a stunning debut that merges Indian classicism with Brian Eno’s sonic manipulation… truly magical.” The band was featured on NPR and garnered a coveted primetime slot in the prestigious 24-Hour Drone event at New York’s Hudson Basilica.

In 2019, Adler delivered EX OH, an album of super-tightly woven, impeccably arranged, songwriterly pop songs packed with myriad sounds and surprises. “I guess if you make enough left turns you get back to where you started,” Adler explains. “This is where I came from. I learned how to play music by writing songs. It’s been a long time since I’ve written in a more conventional style, but it’s been so interesting to return to it after so many years. It’s almost like a different person is doing it.” Indeed, within the structural framework of his excellent writing, one also finds all the elements from his other endeavors—the pop sensibilities of The Blam, the lyrical force of Flugente, the layered beauty of Wave Sleep Wave, and the sound-as-music ethos of Arranged Marriage NP.