Texas singer-songwriter Sarah Jaffe has announced the release of her new companion EPs - This Is Better Part 1 & This Is Better Part 2 - due out July 19th via Kirtland Records. The songs across the two EPs came out of some intense writing sessions with producer and collaborator Aaron Kelley, who Jaffe first connected with to write music for films. The two clicked and started working on songs together. Over the weeks that followed Jaffe dug deep, writing songs that helped her deal with the emotions she was processing as a result of a recent heartbreak she was going through. Originally planning to shop these songs around, Jaffe decided she couldn't part ways and wanted to record them for herself.
At the beginning of last summer, I met producer Aaron Kelley in Dallas. I initially met him to record some clean vocals for a track I had written for a film with a mutual producer/friend. At the end of that session Aaron had mentioned he was looking for a top-liner, which was something I had just started to do more of previous to meeting him. Meanwhile, I was knee-deep in some gnarly heartbreak. I needed to keep my brain occupied and writing was, quite literally, the only thing that felt good.
I started meeting with Aaron a couple times a week. Because of where I was at mentally and physically, everything I wrote was so close to the chest. "LAY LOW (TAKE CARE)" was the first track we did together and I realized about four songs in that these songs all felt like mine. It's interesting to me to have gone in with the intent to pitch songs to other artists and come out with two EPs about grief and coming out of it. I'm really grateful to have met Aaron at a very strange time, in what now feels like, another life. - Sarah Jaffe
Today, Jaffe has also released the video (
WATCH HERE) for the first single - "
Dark Energy" - which BlackBook describes as "a moving meditation on the persistent struggle for self-possession." While discussing other tracks from the releases, Jaffe calls "Happy New Year" a "sonic quilt of audio ripped from videos of friends and family. I wanted it to sound like nostalgia, and taking the good memories with you into the future," while saying "It Can Only Get Better" is "really about hope. It's a direct response to those good things you take with you from the past, and moving forward with gratitude to the people that helped you along the way."
Since releasing her most recent critically acclaimed LP Bad Baby in 2017, Jaffe has contributed and composed original music for the 2018 independent film Never Goin' Back, which was named one of Interview Magazine's 10 Must See Movies at Sundance, and performed at two of
Jonathan Simkhai's New York
Fashion Week shows. She also contributed original music forOcculus' virtual reality short Dear Angelica and had the honor of presenting the
Vanguard Award to her former tour-mate and B-52s' singer
Cindy Wilson at the 2018 She Rocks Awards. Most recently Jaffe performed at Nona Hendryx's Rock Solid Women's Festival in NYC alongside Hendryx, Ultra Naté and more, adding to the ever-growing list of powerful female artists she has shared stages with including Norah Jones, Patty Griffin, Erykah Badu, Metric,Chelsea Wolfe, and Cyndi Lauper. On August 31st, Jaffe is set to play the 50th
Anniversary of the Texas International Pop Fest - the famous 1969 music festival in Lewisville, TX that featured legendary acts like Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Santana, Sly & the
Family Stone, and more.
Sarah Jaffe's companion EPs This Is Better Part 1 & This Is Better Part 2 will be available on July 19th via all DSPs, and you can watch the brand-new video for "Dark Energy"
HERE. See below for the full track-listing and confirmed tour dates, and as always stay tuned to
www.sarahjaffe.com for all up-to-date information as Jaffe gears up for more new music later this year.
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