New Yorker, Cassandra Jenkins is an artist who has been attracting a fair bit of notice of late. Features and reviews in the likes of Uncut Magazine ,glowing reviews and repeated plays from DJs such as 6 Music's Gideon Coe, who know their stuff.
Jenkins' latest record An Overview of Phenomenal Nature, from what I can gather, her second, has been out a couple of weeks and I've played it a few times and it's a very impressive album. Full of space and light and thought, reflection on life and loss, intoned with calm phrasing reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, Margo Timmins and Suzanne Vega.
Some background detail might be helpful with regards to getting a feel for this. Jenkins is a very close friend and musical associate of David Berman, Of Sikver Jews and Ourple Mountains), who lost his struggle with life and passed in dreadfully sad circumstances less than a couple of years back.
This was a death that affected a lot of people who had been moved and stirred by Berman's work over the years. But clearly it must have had a particularly unnerving impact on those who knew and worked with him.
An Overview is a record in gradual transition from pain to somewhere more hopeful. In short, a reflection on life.The grief, the mourning is palpable, but so too is the plapable resolve to push on to somewhere more positive.
Beauty is probably an overused and abused phrase but I find this a really beautiful record and one I suspect will endure. It's just seven tracks long but by no means insubstantial. One to return to and work out what you liked about it and why it resonated first time round.
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