Assembly, Uptown Kingston’s newest music venue, has been igniting a fire in the city’s nightlife and bringing in something of a new cultural epoch as musicians from all corners of the country and beyond make their way to this historic neck of New York’s woods.

Kingston Wire was recently impressed by an upcoming musician who is performing this Friday, May 9, at Assembly, hailing all the way from Montreal for his Kingston debut — Jeremy Haywood-Smith, better known as JayWood.

JayWood is originally from Winnipeg, Canada (and, yes, he has heard of the eponymously named avant garde film by Gus Madden named after the Manitoban city) and is trying to move beyond his full-time job as a mailman to pursue the arts. After releasing his first full-length album in 2019, Time, JayWood followed this up in 2022 with the Polaris Prize-nominated album Slingshot.

JayWood refers to his music as “indie-alternative-soul” — it has a definite jazzy, psychedelic vibe. “It’s really an amalgamation of several sounds, always changing and expanding depending on where I’m at creatively; what’s hitting my ear,” JayWood said.

His current tour is with Tune-Yards, the Connecticut-based indie pop band comprised of Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner. Having connected after the band supported JayWood’s first EP, he eventually reached out which led to these two groups creating a song together, JayWood’s “Big Tings” featuring Tune-Yards. It was after this collaboration that the band asked JayWood to join them on their East Coast tour.

JayWood also recently released “Untitled (Swirl)” and told Kingston Wire that he will be performing both of these songs along with a handful of his EPs and other tracks, both old and new, at Assembly, so listeners can get a taste of his entire discography.

He hopes that people will want to “dive deeper” after hearing his music and sees his creations as “building stories and expanding creative ideas with different art forms. Maybe it will make them want to watch a video, listen to interviews or look at photos. I try to be intentional with every artistic aspect of the project, even down to what I’m wearing.”

JayWood has recently expanded his creative practice with other art forms, noting how his exploration with improvised dancing has helped him to be more “a part of my body,” adding that “sometimes I forget I’m in my body, it’s a weird disassociation. I’m trying to do more things to be present with it and dancing is a great way to do that.”

Beyond dancing, JayWood has recently gotten into DJ’ing and is dipping his toes into acting again. Everything he does, he said, is to enable him to “get more comfortable as a performer in every aspect. The improvisation aspect, the embodying aspect.”

This will be JayWood’s first time in Kingston, and the Wire was sure to give him a rundown of all the best spots to check out while he’s here. He let us know that “if anyone comes down to the show, I’m very personable and we can definitely shoot the shit.”

JayWood hinted that “maybe there will be an album” coming in the future, so keep up with him on Instagram @jayyywood, Facebook, and check out his music on Spotify, Bandcamp, or wherever else you stream your music. The show is currently sold out, but feel free to join the waitlist here. You can see more of Assembly’s current lineup here.