Californian musician brings dream of Estonia to Korea

Macajey / Courtesy of Macajey

By Jon Dunbar

Like many readers of this newspaper, Jeremy Macachor moved away from the country of his birth and established a new life in a distant land. For him, that land was Estonia.

Macachor, a singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer from California who releases music under the name Macajey, admitted that people are often surprised he would move from California all the way to Eastern Europe, to a country where wood-burning stoves are still commonplace.

"California ― and especially the San Francisco Bay Area, where I'm from ― has its amazing qualities: the weather, nature, food, my family. I love it there, but I also always felt that something was missing," he told The Korea Times. "I didn't always know what that thing was, but I always had this deep feeling to go to Europe and I had an inkling I would find what I was looking for here."

Before settling in Tartu, Estonia, he spent time in London studying audio engineering, then moved to Reykjavik, where he interned at Greenhouse Studios, famous for recording Bjork. After some time back in California, he worked at another studio in Edinburgh, before he paid a visit to Estonia to see friends he'd met in Iceland.

"They set me up in an apartment with a wood-burning stove that only cost 80 euros per month at the time, and after moving in, I knew I could live here permanently. It was just my luck that I fell in love with my roommate ― as well as the city ― and we got married within six months of meeting," adding that this happened 11 years ago.

"In all the other European cities I lived in before, I loved them, but I didn't have this feeling I could settle there. In Tartu I found a goldmine. It has all the culture, the music scene is very strong, the people are amazingly talented and I just fit in here in a way I always dreamed about. It feels for me like the coolest borough of London, without having to deal with the loud, noisy, polluted, expensive, claustrophobic aspects of big cities. A 10-minute walk out of Tartu and you're in nature already swimming in the river that runs through town, and every night there is something going on, whether it's comedy, theater, student-run events, music of all genres," he said.

Macajey / Courtesy of Macajey

This week, he's coming out to Korea on an East Asia tour. He'll play three gigs in Busan and Seoul, before moving on to Japan for three more shows.

Macajey is one man producing dream pop, and his music is widely described as organic, shoegazey, uplifting and psychedelic. He says his music is infused with the landscape tones of his two home bases: the dry mirage-laden heat of California summers and the dimly lit winters of Estonia.

"What you are hearing is someone trying to figure out who he is, someone digging deep to learn about their own soul and facing fears along the way, while also taking inspiration from nature," he said. "I started out as a just a guitar player, and at the time I just wanted to be a guitar player in a band like Red Hot Chilli Peppers or The Mars Volta, but it didn't really work out finding a band of likeminded people."

Still full of songs he wanted to write, he directed his creative energy to mixing and producing so he could write instrumental songs.

At first he only collaborated with singers, but with his latest songs like "Transmitter" and "Summer Rain," that's his voice.

"I also always had this desire to sing, and that was probably the biggest fear of my life to get over. So I gathered the courage to start and slowly started using my voice," he said. "I feel like all the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together. This has been unfolding for me over the last 18+ years! And now that I'm here, I can see the horizon of taking everything I've learned up to this point and just refining it more and more for the rest of my life."

Macajey is not simply one guy hitting keys on a laptop from atop a DJ stand, or playing a guitar alone in front of a crowd. He sees live performance as an important part of the act.

"I really enjoy the processes of playing a show and seeing how I can do certain things better and facing my fears. I feel like I learn more about myself from one gig, than I do in a month of regular life," he said.

He's planning to put together a full-length album this year, but in time for this tour, he's released a couple of singles slightly ahead of schedule.

"I'll be honest, I don't know much about the indie scene in Korea. I'm kind of trying to not dig in too much so I can be surprised when I get there. I think that's part of the fun of going somewhere new is hearing the music for the first time in its own environment," he said.

Macajey / Courtesy of Macajey

"Whenever I go to a new city, I really enjoy just taking the bus around and looking out the window, or walking around randomly to see where I end up. This trip will be so busy and fast-paced that I'll just have to find little moments to look around and experience what life has to offer for these two weeks," he said.

He'll be in Busan's Ovantgarde on Thursday and Basement on Friday, before coming to Seoul for a show at Club FF on Saturday.

Follow Macajey on Twitter or Instagram @macajeymusic, or visit soundcloud.com/macajey to hear his music.