B-Side Guys

Nashville’s Jess Kerber closes her debut album preview series with perhaps the most essential truth in modern nomadic existence: home isn’t a location you find but a state you cultivate. “Carry My Home” operates as both philosophical statement and practical instruction manual for anyone who’s learned that stability comes from within rather than from zip codes.

Set against the sound of soft rainfall, the track creates immediate intimacy that recalls living room performances where the outside world dissolves into irrelevance. Kerber’s fingerpicked acoustic work, developed through years of experimenting with alternative tunings since age twelve, provides foundation sturdy enough to support her central revelation about self-reliance without overwhelming its delicate delivery.

Her collaboration with Will Orchard demonstrates the kind of production restraint that serves vulnerable material best. Rather than decorating her insights with unnecessary arrangements, they allow space for her “radiant voice” to carry the emotional weight. The decision to leave her vocals “mostly unadorned” while creating “delicate layered clouds at key moments” reflects understanding that some truths require minimal interference.

The song’s most powerful moment arrives with her observation about “watching the sun a little / Make sure it sets under me”—a line that captures the specific satisfaction of learning to find stability through observation rather than possession. Kerber’s approach to wandering feels less like restless searching and more like intentional practice in portable contentment.

“Carry My Home” succeeds because Kerber treats self-reliance as skill rather than circumstance. Her Louisiana upbringing and Berklee education inform an approach that honors both rootedness and movement, creating framework for understanding how some people learn to thrive in transition rather than despite it.