‘Leave It All Behind’ explores that familiar fantasy that somewhere else might make everything different. And Phoenix-based composer, painter and outsider artist Allan Jamisen approaches that idea with a mixture of romanticism and scepticism, turning the promise of escape into something far more complicated. The song imagines the rush of leaving a stagnant life behind, driving towards reinvention and possibility, while quietly acknowledging that distance can only change so much.
There’s this strong cinematic quality to the premise. The open road, the new beginning, the belief that a different city or different life might finally unlock something better; all of it carries the glow of classic American escape mythology. But as we all know, the past travels too.
That idea sits naturally within a career shaped by movement and reinvention. His own musical history stretches from early work in LA clubs through gospel, cassette-based home recording, Copenhagen collaborations and electronic experimentation, before eventually circling back to the United States.
His influences are equally wide-ranging, as Burt Bacharach, The Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Frank Sinatra, James Brown and Bob Dylan all sit somewhere within the wider musical world around him, helping explain why his work resists easy categorisation. He has always seemed more interested in absorbing different traditions than choosing one lane altogether.
In all, ‘Leave It All Behind’ is a song about wanting transformation from an artist whose own creative life has been shaped by constant movement between places, scenes and styles. Yet it also understands that reinvention can be real, escape can be necessary, and a new road can absolutely change what happens next. But none of those things guarantee freedom from yourself.
‘Leave It All Behind’ explores that contradiction beautifully, turning the fantasy of disappearance into a more mature reflection on what we carry with us when we go.