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JACK LARKIN
Purkinje Shift (Tune X Recording Company)
Add date: 8.25.2026
Release date: 8.21.2026
Links:
Apple Music
Instagram
Official Website
Spotify
TikTok
YouTube
Jack Larkin’s fourth album is a massive leap forward for the Southern California singer-songwriter—a kaleidoscopic world of sound that digs deep into life’s big questions while always remembering to come up for air. Purkinje Shift is at once intimately warm and chock full of sonic surprises at every turn, equally reminiscent of Panda Bear’s beatific psych-pop and the rustic, entrancing chamber-pop fantasias of Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen. In general, people really don’t make music like Purkinje Shift anymore—which means that Larkin has arrived right on time with a unique sonic approach that completely recontextualizes his work thus far, gesturing towards a bright and shining future in the process.
Purkinje Shift is the culmination of Larkin’s musical journey thus far, which began with him diving headlong into scoring, production, and sound design after graduating college. Working on others’ music, as it turns out, only further drove him towards creating on his own: “I'd be wearing headphones all day at work, and then I'd get home and want to plug in the guitar.” 2021’s sharp and tangy How to Cook a Wolf was directly inspired by the cut’n’paste digital chaos of hyperpop, while The Wishing Well from 2024 found Larkin drawing his own boundaries by working within the world of library sync music—a parameter that, ironically, inspired the free-flowing sound of Purkinje Shift. “It was a fun experiment to write with pre-confined rules, but I also got tired of that really fast,” he explains. “I wanted to do something more creatively expansive while still keeping the listener in mind.”
“Expansive” is a defining quality of Purkinje Shift, which flows together like an epic song cycle—which is immediately apparent in the three-song suite “Scotopia,” “Matches and Oil,” and “The Photographer” that ushers in the album’s front half. “I just started writing songs with weird shapes and no intention of what they’d become—but they started to feel like they were coming together with a natural flow,” Larkin explains. Much of the album came together during an intimate 2024 session in which he holed up in a cabin near Twin Peaks’ Lake Arrowhead, pulling from his love of Rossen’s creative tunings as well as the monastic flourishes of Nick Drake, Mort Garson’s early-electronic synth fantasias, and the far-out psychedelic pop of Animal Collective and Olivia Tremor Control.
Thematically, Purkinje Shift—the title of which refers to 18th century Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyně—draws from the eternal cycle of change that one goes through in life, as well as the struggles to persevere through an uncertain world. “As I was writing the album, there was a lot of change happening in my life,” Larkin explains. “The album is about someone who’s unable to see things clearly, experiencing the cycles of clarity and confusion that we go through in life.”
The album’s lyrics gesture towards an unnamed protagonist contemplating vision correction surgery, which culminates in the swaying closer “Colorburst,” “The protagonist says, ‘OK, it's time to do this procedure and actually face these things,’” Larkin says of the song’s full-circle moment. “We go through times in life where things seem unclear, and change is really frightening—but every time you go through that cycle, it becomes a little bit more normal too. When you feel like you're at a low point in life, you start to see things a little differently—and that can be inspiring and motivating.”
The oceanic swell of “Grandfather's Axe” draws inspiration from Theseus’s Paradox, looking inward to ask questions about the shifting nature of time; with thick acoustic strums and Larkin’s bright, searching voice, “Matches and Oil” resembles a lost Beach Boys tune in its shadowy sunniness. “It's very dissonant-sounding, and it has a restless energy,” he says of the song. “The lyrics are about when you’re at that point of transformation where you have a lot of freedom to determine what kind of person you want to be and who you want to surround yourself with, how you want to spend your time. That can be equally intimidating and liberating.”
That notion of pushing oneself into uncomfortable—but ultimately rewarding—territory marks Purkinje Shift as a whole, as Larkin has put more of himself into a record than ever before. “This is the most personal thing I've ever made lyrically,” he reflects. “In the past, I’ve beat around the bush with lyrics, but there was definitely a lot of change going on in my life when I started writing this record. Now, I have a great vision of where I am, the community I'm in, and what I want to do in life. But I was definitely confused for a time, and this album was a ladder to climb out of that with.” And Purkinje Shift finds Larkin using that sonic apparatus to discover rich new elements of his musical style, gesturing towards his own limitless creative potential.
Apple Music
Official Website
Spotify
TikTok
YouTube
Jack Larkin’s fourth album is a massive leap forward for the Southern California singer-songwriter—a kaleidoscopic world of sound that digs deep into life’s big questions while always remembering to come up for air. Purkinje Shift is at once intimately warm and chock full of sonic surprises at every turn, equally reminiscent of Panda Bear’s beatific psych-pop and the rustic, entrancing chamber-pop fantasias of Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen. In general, people really don’t make music like Purkinje Shift anymore—which means that Larkin has arrived right on time with a unique sonic approach that completely recontextualizes his work thus far, gesturing towards a bright and shining future in the process.
Purkinje Shift is the culmination of Larkin’s musical journey thus far, which began with him diving headlong into scoring, production, and sound design after graduating college. Working on others’ music, as it turns out, only further drove him towards creating on his own: “I'd be wearing headphones all day at work, and then I'd get home and want to plug in the guitar.” 2021’s sharp and tangy How to Cook a Wolf was directly inspired by the cut’n’paste digital chaos of hyperpop, while The Wishing Well from 2024 found Larkin drawing his own boundaries by working within the world of library sync music—a parameter that, ironically, inspired the free-flowing sound of Purkinje Shift. “It was a fun experiment to write with pre-confined rules, but I also got tired of that really fast,” he explains. “I wanted to do something more creatively expansive while still keeping the listener in mind.”
“Expansive” is a defining quality of Purkinje Shift, which flows together like an epic song cycle—which is immediately apparent in the three-song suite “Scotopia,” “Matches and Oil,” and “The Photographer” that ushers in the album’s front half. “I just started writing songs with weird shapes and no intention of what they’d become—but they started to feel like they were coming together with a natural flow,” Larkin explains. Much of the album came together during an intimate 2024 session in which he holed up in a cabin near Twin Peaks’ Lake Arrowhead, pulling from his love of Rossen’s creative tunings as well as the monastic flourishes of Nick Drake, Mort Garson’s early-electronic synth fantasias, and the far-out psychedelic pop of Animal Collective and Olivia Tremor Control.
Thematically, Purkinje Shift—the title of which refers to 18th century Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyně—draws from the eternal cycle of change that one goes through in life, as well as the struggles to persevere through an uncertain world. “As I was writing the album, there was a lot of change happening in my life,” Larkin explains. “The album is about someone who’s unable to see things clearly, experiencing the cycles of clarity and confusion that we go through in life.”
The album’s lyrics gesture towards an unnamed protagonist contemplating vision correction surgery, which culminates in the swaying closer “Colorburst,” “The protagonist says, ‘OK, it's time to do this procedure and actually face these things,’” Larkin says of the song’s full-circle moment. “We go through times in life where things seem unclear, and change is really frightening—but every time you go through that cycle, it becomes a little bit more normal too. When you feel like you're at a low point in life, you start to see things a little differently—and that can be inspiring and motivating.”
The oceanic swell of “Grandfather's Axe” draws inspiration from Theseus’s Paradox, looking inward to ask questions about the shifting nature of time; with thick acoustic strums and Larkin’s bright, searching voice, “Matches and Oil” resembles a lost Beach Boys tune in its shadowy sunniness. “It's very dissonant-sounding, and it has a restless energy,” he says of the song. “The lyrics are about when you’re at that point of transformation where you have a lot of freedom to determine what kind of person you want to be and who you want to surround yourself with, how you want to spend your time. That can be equally intimidating and liberating.”
That notion of pushing oneself into uncomfortable—but ultimately rewarding—territory marks Purkinje Shift as a whole, as Larkin has put more of himself into a record than ever before. “This is the most personal thing I've ever made lyrically,” he reflects. “In the past, I’ve beat around the bush with lyrics, but there was definitely a lot of change going on in my life when I started writing this record. Now, I have a great vision of where I am, the community I'm in, and what I want to do in life. But I was definitely confused for a time, and this album was a ladder to climb out of that with.” And Purkinje Shift finds Larkin using that sonic apparatus to discover rich new elements of his musical style, gesturing towards his own limitless creative potential.