Cassandra Jenkins has announced she has signed to Dead Oceans and will release a new album, My Light, My Destroyer, on July 12. The follow-up to 2021’s An Overview on Phenomenal Nature is led by the new single ‘Only One’, which arrives with a video directed by Lydia Fine and Tony Blahd. Check it out below.
“It’s about a Groundhog Day effect, finding yourself in the same situation over and over again, not knowing how to get out of that loop—and in some sense, an unwillingness to break a cycle because you’re blinded by your circumstances,” Jenkins said of the new song in a statement. The opening line, “seasick dawn,” was inspired by her friend Kristin Andreaasen and describes the “queasiness that comes with meeting a new day, dry eyed, in a string of sleepless nights.”
Speaking about An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, Jenkins added, “I was channeling what I knew in that moment– feeling lost. When that record came out, and people started to respond to what I had written, my plans to quit were foiled in the most unexpected, heartening, and generous way. Ready or not, it reinvigorated me.”
When it came to recording a follow-up, Jenkins explained, “I was coming from a place of burn out and depletion, and in the months following the session, I struggled to accept that I didn’t like the record I had just made. It felt uninspired, so I started over.” Working with producer Andrew Lappin, My Light, My Destroyer, she began reconstructing My Light, My Destroyer. “When we listened back in the control room that first day, I could see a space on my record shelf start to open up, because the songs were finding their home in real time. That spark informed the blueprint for the rest of the album, and its completion was propelled by a newfound momentum.”
The LP includes contributions from 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’ friend, director/actor/journalist Hailey Benton Gates (who inspired the An Overview‘s ‘Hailey’ and jokingly suggested the title of the new album’s closing track, ‘Hayley’).
“Awe is a function of nature that keeps us from losing connection,” Jenkins shared. “Staying in touch with awe, that light, is the best antidote to fear, and the powers that try to control us with fear. So in that sense, staying in touch with awe is to keep my light intact, and that is my greatest tool for destroying and dismantling the parts of myself and the world around me that have the potential to cause harm. Frankly, this is what keeps me from quitting—it serves as a reminder to pause and appreciate my time on earth, for all its chaos and its beauty.”
Revisit our Artist Spotlight interview with Cassandra Jenkins.
My Light, My Destroyer Cover Artwork:
My Light, My Destroyer Tracklist:
1. Devotion
2. Clams Casino
3. Delphinium Blue
4. Shatner’s Theme
5. Aurora, IL
6. Betelgeuse
7. Omakase
8. Music??
9. Petco
10. Attente Téléphonique
11. Tape and Tissue
12. Only One
13. Hayley
