Jack Johnson - SURFILMUSIC [2LP]

Before the hits, Jack Johnson was a surfer with a film camera, and SURFILMUSIC heads back to that salt-crusted beginning across two LPs.

Released in 2026 alongside the documentary of the same name, directed by Emmett Malloy and premiered at SXSW, the album traces his path from surfer to filmmaker to musician. The film revisits his early surf movies Thicker Than Water and The September Sessions, shot with friends on 16mm long before the big tours, and features familiar faces such as Kelly Slater, Ben Harper and G. Love.

The first disc is the soundtrack proper, pairing new score pieces written with the sibling guitar duo Hermanos Gutiérrez alongside remastered four-track sketches. "Drink The Water" and "Hold On To The Light" get warm new versions, the brothers' shimmering, desert-tinged guitars wrapped around Johnson's easy vocal.

The second disc is a gift for longtime listeners, gathering raw four-track versions of songs that went on to appear on Brushfire Fairytales and On and On, including "Flake" and "Bubble Toes", with all the tape hiss and bedroom intimacy that implies, the songs still finding their final shape.

It plays like a scrapbook from Oahu's North Shore, film grain and all, and a lovely reminder of where that unhurried, beachside sound was born.