I was high and catatonic on a summer evening, flat on my back in a cramped and overpopulated apartment on the corner of Pico and Sepulveda. The windows of my bedroom were coated with an orange glow, from the farewell shouts of a sun that I had ignored for countless months. It was 2021 and the pandemic had pulled all meaning from beneath my feet. Prostrate, I was in no rush to get back up.
In this moment of dusk, a span no longer than ten minutes, I met Cassandra Jenkins. By some stroke of luck, or rather the algorithm, her breakthrough single “Hard Drive” was delivered through the speakers on my twenty-seven inch television. Little did I know that the ensuing night was about to get very dark. At first, I was struck by the beauty of the song. Its plainspoken lyrics and healing chorus were hypnotizing, a welcome reprieve that demanded my otherwise snuffed attention like a Japanese novel that follows a series of coincidences to a debilitating climax. The refrain of the song, which puns on the word hard drive to reference both simulation theory and the rocky road of existence was, to me, an unwelcome reminder that I, in my fragile condition at the time, was on the verge of frightening uncertainty. In the following twelve months, which included a nervous breakdown, recovery, and exhaustive reinvention, Jenkins’ single and her album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature became lifelines that kept me afloat in the stormiest waters.
Three years later, against the odds, both Cassandra and I are thriving. It’s hard to believe, but Jenkins, who before 2021 had been a relatively unknown singer-songwriter, intended Phenomenal Nature to be her farewell to music. But, unexpectedly, the album blew up, with rave reviews on publications like Pitchfork and Paste, making numerous year end lists at the time. It has recently even been included in the conversation as one of the best records of the decade so far. This past summer, she released her much awaited follow-up to great acclaim. Thematically and sentimentally different from its predecessor, My Light, My Destroyer continues to expand on Jenkins’ artistry, which revolves around poetry, collaged field recordings, and deep connections found in random everyday moments and spaces. In the meantime, I’ve come through alright as well—emotionally balanced and in university, comfortably reaching out for worlds previously closed off to me. Just as Phenomenal Nature guided me through a sense of grief and loss, Jenkins’ latest, inspired by Ann Carson’s poem on the Hellenic myth of Apollo and Cassandra, has helped me regain meaning in the scattered constellations and cosmogony of the tortured universe.
I considered it a pilgrimage to see her perform live, because I believed that it would give me a sort of respite. A moment to pause where I could stop in my tracks and openly consider the journey I’ve been on over the past few years.
Olivia Kaplan kicked off the evening at Zebulon. She made for an ideal opener, not simply because her sound is on the same wavelength as Cassandra Jenkins’, but because the two artists contend with similar themes and even include the same characters. In the middle of her set, after she played “Living Proof” and “Lost on Me,” Kaplan confessed that her latest album Afterlife is informed by the grief and loss she’s experienced over the last few years. She mentioned the influence of Jenkins’ An Overview on Phenomenal Nature on this latest effort. In fact, both albums grieve the passing of David Berman, best known as the frontman of The Silver Jews. Much like Jenkins and Kaplan, Berman’s songwriting prioritizes a sort of literary expression that is emotionally complex, influenced more by contemporary poetry as opposed to pop music. He’s one of few indie legends with a globally renowned poetry collection tossed alongside his stellar discography. All three musicians write lyrics that effortlessly condense major existential problems into brief metaphorical observations. Kaplan, for instance, shines in the ballad “Nothing Changes.” Starting out of simple impressions, the song breaks into a koan-like prayer which invites the audience to sing along to feel at peace about the irrevocable pain that defines our very presence.
After Olivia’s set, pre-recorded ambient sounds accompanied the band as they walked on stage and picked up their instruments. They were all well-dressed men in muted button-up shirts and salt-and-pepper hair with the aura of Manhattan in the aughts. In this ensemble, Cassandra Jenkins stood out, especially as the only woman on stage. Plus, she ascended in an iridescent jacket with bright blue and black damask pants, paired with chelsea boots. Speaking of auras, Jenkins radiated with an ineffable sense of cool. Though it was nothing too distant, because as soon as she looked out at the crowd and smiled with her dark lipstick, everyone was instantly disarmed. Just like in My Light, My Destroyer, Jenkins opened up with “Devotion” and played a series of the new tracks from “Aurora, IL” to “Only One” to “Omakase.” The album, which relies on studio innovation and clever mixing, carried a hitherto unknown power live. A song like “Petco” gently spilled into the genre conventions of power pop as the lead guitarist shredded mercilessly, despite Jenkins’ calm and controlled vocals. Or “Delphinium Blue,” which tends to play like an opaque sort of artifact on the stereo, opens up into a stream-of-consciousness confessional. Between takes, Jenkins’ personal field recordings filled the silence.
When she eased into her older songs, the room went a little soft and started to feel a bit misty. Even though I admire My Light, My Destroyer—it’s genuinely one of my favorite records of the year—there is an intimate kinship between me and An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. So when she closed her eyes, leaned into the mic, and sang:
I’m a three-legged dog
workin’ with what I’ve got
and part of me will always be
looking for what I’ve lost …
We were suddenly in sync. “Michelangelo.” I heard the voice that suffered so many years ago and it was followed soon afterwards with a lump in the throat. When I first heard the song I recognized in myself a stranger, a sorry but approachable one, with a longing look in his eyes. The tune became a compass for those foggy days. Yet these aren’t songs for me to simply sing along from memory. They are appendages to my physical body. To experience “Hard Drive” straight from the source was to go through a cleanse at a remote, ancient, and exclusive spring in a secret mountain, hidden away thanks to the work of fanatical monks. Then, with “New Bikini,” when Jenkins offers sage advice to jump into the ocean, because the water, it cures everything, waves of the past washed away and settled into the haze on the horizon. I stood still and watched my memories collect into the distance as part of a view that’s much bigger than anything I can hope to grasp. When she finished and walked off, I turned away from the stage, having given a proper goodbye, and more importantly a sincere thank you, to an impossible chapter of my life.
