CASSANDRA JENKINS - My Light, My Destroyer LP

At the heart of the guitar-driven indie-rock, new-age, sophistipop and jazz-inspired album is Cassandra Jenkins' curiosity about the quarks and quasars that make up her universe, as she blends field recordings with poetic lyricism that is by turns allusive, humorous, harrowing and confessional - an alchemical gesture that further deepens the richness of My Light, My Destroyer's 13 songs. Although My Light, My Destroyer was written in the space of a year, some of the songs have been slumbering in Jenkins' notebooks for years; During the making of the album, she had many sonic reference points in mind: Tom Petty's deceptively airy folk-rock classicism, the work of songwriters such as Annie Lennox and Neil Young, her "high school CD wallet" (Radiohead's The Bends, The Breeders, PJ Harvey and Pavement) and David Bowie's final gesture, "Blackstar"; plus lyrical influences from writers such as Anne Carson, Maggie Nelson, Rebecca Solnit and the ubiquitous work of the late David Berman. But above all, Jenkins draws inspiration, as always, from the shimmering electricity of the world around her, squinting through the static of the radio with a desire for greater understanding. By cleverly interweaving field recordings and ambient noise (train noises and flight attendants, for example), she draws attention to unreal moments that sweep the listener away. Joining her are a number of friends from across the spectrum of modern indie rock, as My Light, My Destroyer is far more of a group effort than the largely solitary endeavor of its predecessor, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. Palehound's El Kempner, Hand Habits' Meg Duffy, Isaac Eiger (formerly of Strange Ranger), Katie Von Schleicher, Zoë Brecher (Hushpuppy), Daniel McDowell (Amen Dunes), producer and instrumentalist Josh Kaufman, producer Stephanie Marziano (Hayley Williams, Bartees Strange), and Jenkins' girlfriend, director/actress/journalist Hailey Benton Gates. Jenkins' penchant for natural and supernatural phenomena crops up again and again (Earth's atmosphere, lizards, flowers, the galaxy, lab-grown strawberries, etc.), only to bring us back to the core of ourselves. The pivotal point on "My Light, My Destroyer" is the nocturnal "Betelgeuse," in which Jenkins, as she says, is "trying to maintain a sense of curiosity as a way of staying connected with myself and nature."