Justin John Scheck Maps Working-Class Life Through Jung on Excerpts From The Blue-Collar Diaries
Out of Sorts Previews a Five-Album Concept Cycle Due Out on 1 March 2027
Justin John Scheck learned on a $30 acoustic guitar from a flea market. His father bought it when he was about 18, and he still uses it. Two decades on, that start has become five self-produced concept albums. He is gathering them as Excerpts From The Blue-Collar Diaries, due on 1 March 2027. Until then, Out of Sorts offers a way in: an art rock and avant-garde electronic piece already in his catalogue.
Justin John Scheck’s Out of Sorts sits in the playlist below with the rest of our art rock picks, and his full run of coverage is collected on his artist profile. The track came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play, then read on for the concept albums behind it.
Concept Albums From The Dark Side of the Moon to OK Computer Were Built in Very Different Rooms
The concept album has no fixed address. Pink Floyd recorded The Dark Side of the Moon at EMI’s London studios, now Abbey Road. They worked in two sessions across 1972 and 1973. The album tells one story about the band’s working pressures and the mental illness of former member Syd Barrett. Radiohead, by contrast, made OK Computer in an Oxfordshire rehearsal space and a historic Bath mansion, St Catherine’s Court. They shaped it around alienation, consumerism and political corruption.
Neutral Milk Hotel took the idea somewhere rougher. Producer Robert Schneider recorded In the Aeroplane Over the Sea with Jeff Mangum at Pet Sounds Studio between July and September 1997. The album leaned on distortion and lo-fi textures and drew on Anne Frank’s diary. Its cult following grew slowly after a moderate first reception. A record shaped by a diary is the closest of the three to what Scheck is attempting.
Justin John Scheck, a Self-Taught One-Man Band From Kansas City, Keeps Shaping Songs at the Mixing Stage
Scheck has named all three albums as the records he keeps returning to, in an interview with Illustrate Magazine. He writes nothing but concept albums. Born in Cleveland, he came of age outside Chicago and moved around the Midwest before settling in Kansas City. He describes himself as a one-man band. He also mixes and masters his own records, because the songs keep changing at that stage. In fact, he rearranges much of their structure after he has recorded everything.
His first album, From The Cradle, came together on Logic Pro X during the covid lockdown. He produced, mixed and mastered it himself. Its sales went to Hope House, a Kansas City charity for people affected by domestic violence. He has said he has never really profited from his music. Instead, he has given what it earns to that cause.
Away from the records, he wrote Memoirs of a Bread Man and hosts a broadcast called A Peasant’s Voice. His work keeps circling class, mental health and life near the edge of the social safety net.
Excerpts From The Blue-Collar Diaries Follows Five Albums and One Jungian Arc to 1 March 2027
Scheck calls the cycle The Blue-Collar Diaries. It reads American working-class life through Carl Jung’s idea of individuation, the slow work of becoming a whole self. Excerpts From The Blue-Collar Diaries walks through it in order. First, The Evening Years: Dance Songs for the Lonely opens on alienation and a descent into what Jung called the shadow. The Sparrow’s Morning War Cry then fights back against institutions. Next, Get In Line For Now faces the monotony of blue-collar work. A Peasant’s Voice brings in orchestral arrangements and gospel choirs for the healing turn. Finally, Fascist Addict looks outward at media manipulation and political division.
Out of Sorts comes from the second of those chapters. Its alternate mix sits on The Sparrow’s Morning War Cry (Remastered 2025), released on 10 July 2025. It runs five minutes and 30 seconds, and Scheck is the only composer in the credits. As always, his tools are an MPC, keyboards, guitar and raw computer sequencing. Together they mix industrial rhythms, avant-garde electronica, alternative rock and synth-pop.
Scheck’s own explanation for the cycle is blunt: “Individuation isn’t a luxury for the academic elite; it’s a survival mechanism for the modern laborer.”
Where to Hear Out of Sorts and Follow Justin John Scheck Before Excerpts From The Blue-Collar Diaries Arrives
Plastic Magazine and Roadie Music have both written about his music already. So the compilation arrives with some ground prepared.
It suits listeners who follow independent artists over years rather than single by single. It also suits anyone who came to OK Computer for its unease about modern life. Scheck offers a self-released, Midwestern version of that worry, made without a label.
From the BestRock.News curator team: “The compilation is due on 1 March, the same date The Dark Side of the Moon reached American shops in 1973. Scheck is asking for the listener that record trained, one who starts at the first track and stays to the last. Out of Sorts is a fair test of whether you are that listener.”
Stream Out of Sorts and the rest of The Sparrow’s Morning War Cry (Remastered 2025) on Apple Music and Deezer. You can also hear the alternate mix of Of Us from Us. Then follow Justin John Scheck on Spotify, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X and YouTube, or visit his official site.
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