Today, NYC musician and artist Cassandra Jenkins releases her highly anticipated new album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, along with her fourth single and video, "Ambiguous Norway", via Ba Da Bing Records. The collection debuts after Jenkins' second single, "Hard Drive", landed on multiple "Best Of" lists by tastemakers including NPR's Bob Boilen of All Songs Considered, Pitchfork, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, and Paste Magazine. Purchase and stream the album here, watch and share video here.
When talking about the songs on An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, Jenkins says, "Nothing ever really disappears, it just changes shape." Over the past few years, she's seen relationships altered, travelled three continents, wandered through museums and parks, and recorded free-associative guided tours of her New York haunts. Her observations have captured the humanity and nature around her, as well as the thought patterns, memories, and attempts to be present while dealing with the aftermath of personal pain and loss. With a singular voice, Jenkins has siphoned these ideas into the ambient folk that she presents.
In her new video for "Ambiguous Norway," Jenkins brings us to Lyngør, the island in Norway where the seeds of An Overview on Phenomenal Nature were born. In collaboration with Norwegian photographer Ole Brodersen (who also shot the album cover), she ties his winter landscapes together with an ethereal form that echoes the murmurs of starlings in flight, and the refrain "you're gone you're everywhere."
Her new album honors these kinds of forms, and mirrors the flux, detail, and moments of intimacy inherent within. Jenkins arrived at engineer Josh Kaufman's studio with ideas rather than full songs - nevertheless, they finished the album in a week. Jenkins' voice floats amid sensuous chamber pop arrangements and raw-edged drums, ferrying us through impressionistic portraits of friends and strangers. Her lyrics unfold magical worlds: introducing you to a cast of characters like a local fisherman, a psychic at a birthday party, and a driving instructor of a spiritual bent. "The goal is to be more fluid, to be more like the clouds shifting constantly," she says, the concept of which allowed her to express herself like she never has.
Jenkins' last record, 2017's Play Till You Win, confirmed the veteran artist's talent. Evident of Jenkins' experience growing up in a family band in New York City, the album showcased her meticulous songwriting and musicianship, earning her comparisons to George Harrison and Emmylou Harris. She has since played in the bands of Eleanor Friedberger, Craig Finn, and Lola Kirke, and was rehearsing to tour with David Berman's Purple Mountains last August before his untimely passing resulted in the tour's cancellation. An Overview on Phenomenal Nature reflects some of that turmoil and pain, while also departing from her previous work in its openness and flexibility. If the album has any kind of unifying overall theme, Jenkins feels that it is the power of presence and the joy of opening oneself up to change.
