Graham Reid | | <1 min read
Petco
It has become quite a recognisable phenomenon: women like Georgia Lines, St. Vincent, The Weather Station (Tamara Lindeman), Weyes Blood, Julia Jacklin and many others pushing the parameters of contemporary music and redefining poetic art-pop for adults.
Brooklyn-based Cassandra Jenkins is in their ranks too.
Her previous album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature was skilfully arranged, dreamy art-folk which -- mostly in subtext -- dealt with accepting the 2019 suicide of David Berman (Silver Jews) whose band Purple Mountains she'd just joined in advance of a tour.
That uncommonly moving record meant trepidation for this follow-up which, happily, is its equal – but different – counterpart. Here she moves deeper within where, like Nick Cave, the mundane world co-exists with an interior reality (“I got the job at the flower shop, I sweep the floors but I'm talking to you” on the ethereal Delphinium Blue) and pop permits psychoanalysis (self examination on the alt.rock Petco).
There are abrasive guitars (conjuring a whirling wind on the folk-rock of Aurora Il.), loose jazzy saxophones (akin to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks on Devotion), strings (Omakase), post-Velvet Underground drone-pop (Clams Casino) alongside spoken word and gorgeously 2am ambient lassitude (Tape and Tissue).
Jenkins and the women mentioned at the start here are also gifted arrangers and intelligent collaborators. They make music for themselves, their peers and sometimes, for the ages.
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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