Danish-born, London-based singer/songwriter Jakob The Liar AKA Jakob Kupferberg knows what it’s like to come by jubilation the hard way. Deriving his stage alter ego from the titular character of Jurek Becker’s book Jacob The Liar — later made into a film starring Robin Williams — Kupferberg’s music encompasses the extremes of the human experience. The film, after all, takes place in a concentration camp, the furthest setting imaginable from what “Heartbeat” brings to mind. Not incidentally, there was a real-life person also named Jakob Kupferberg who died in a WWII concentration camp who may possibly have been a relative of Jakob’s.

For Jakob, the imprisonment of this elder namesake about whom little is known became the perfect creative vehicle to traverse between the personal and the universal. He spent 8 years of his adolescence battling a life-threatening mental health crisis triggered by an adverse reaction to a skin medication. Now, several years on the other side of that ordeal, Jakob has gained a profound understanding for the idea that “waking up” often comes at the hands of a painful jolt you weren’t ready for. By the same token, he harbors a deep appreciation for how great life can feel—a joie de vivre that suffuses “Heartbeat” from start to finish.

Likewise, Jakob also empathizes with what appears to be a worldwide descent into madness unfolding all around us.

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