Cassandra Jenkins - Apollo, Sisyphus and a meteorite

“An Overview On Phenomenal Nature” was a revelation, a singular record, partly because of the tragic circumstances that contributed to its genesis. But playing those songs over and over, during two years spent mostly on tour, must have completely drained their author, Cassandra Jenkins, who confides to me over Zoom: “I was afraid I had nothing left to say”. Despite the pressure, the singer-songwriter found her authorial voice again, thanks in part to New York City, her lifelong companion, and to the people close to her. During our conversation we discussed various aspects of her new work “My Light, My Destroyer”, steeped in Greek mythology, aimed at deep Space, and once again dotted with the sounds of the American metropolis.

What or who does the title of your new record, “My Light, My Destroyer”, refer to?

It's inspired by a text by Anne Carson, one of my favorite writers. She's written a lot about Greek mythology, and speaking of the figure of Cassandra, she writes that as Cassandra is apparently succumbing to madness before the fall of Troy, she cries out to Apollo. She invokes him seven times, and the last time she slightly alters the invocation so that the name takes on a new meaning, that of killing, destroying. “My god” thus becomes, at the same time, “my destroyer”. Apollo was the god of sunlight, and I let myself be inspired by that idea.

For “My Light, My Destroyer” you worked with a lot of musicians. How did these collaborations come about?

I often collaborated with friends or people based in New York or Los Angeles. My main collaborator on this record was Andrew Lappin. He was the one who suggested we work together, and in no time we built a strong friendship and a great working relationship. Some of the people playing on the new songs I've known for many years, while others I'd just met, and it was the first time we'd worked together. I like the idea of building a band around each individual's particular strengths. For instance, for “Petco” I had a vague idea of something in a pop-punk vein, and I told myself Zoë Brecher was the right person for it; or for “Devotion” I knew I needed Joshua Jaeger's drumming. This band is my ideal fantasy football team!

Did the writing and recording process unfold differently compared to your previous collections of songs?

Yes, definitely, in almost every respect. I wrote “An Overview” while I was in a confused period of my life, following some tragic events. After two years of touring, I found myself exhausted and thought I had nothing left to say. It took time to regain my energy, and going to see live shows, I let myself be inspired by friends. Being in New York reinvigorated me.

On a purely sonic level, I think this album is more eclectic than the previous one. Instead of a cohesive atmospheric flow, there are indie-rock tracks, jazzy ballads and indie-folk songs. Why did you choose to blend genres this way on “My Light, My Destroyer”?

I tried to listen to the songs and follow the direction they were pointing me toward. Having collaborated with so many people obviously helped broaden the musical references. When I wrote “An Overview” I was living my life in NY, always surrounded by friends; for this record I suddenly found myself signed to a label and far from my friends, either because I was in the middle of a tour or because I was trying to avoid too much contact so as not to catch Covid, since that could have jeopardized upcoming shows. I really needed to be with my friends, to have outside influences, to become a sponge and absorb everything around me, so I could channel it into my music.

On “An Overview” grief was a central theme, and yet the album had a very luminous sound. On some of the new songs, like “Delphinium Blue” and “Tape And Tissue”, you instead explore darker, more nocturnal arrangements.

That's true! “Delphinium Blue” is very nocturnal, it feels like it comes from a dark space. A good part of the album is set at dawn or before sunrise. I think I'm exploring a kind of darkness and the way I try to find light within it. Light and darkness, one can't exist without the other. Finding a balance between the two has been a driving force for me, both across the album as a whole and within the tones of each individual song. It's an interplay I find truly compelling.

Field recordings were already a fundamental part of your music on "The Ramble". Now you're using them again, in several fragments throughout the record. What do they mean to you?

I like to think of them as tools capable of shifting my perspective. Deep listening and observing with curiosity let you put on different lenses to look at the world. When I put on the headphones I use for field recording, I listen in a different way, with discernment and openness. It's very different from moving through the world going from point A to point B: it's a way of being present.

In a way similar to meditation?

It's definitely meditative. To me, meditation means being aware of my surroundings and of the sounds and noises around me. It's not about silencing them, but about listening to them attentively. Pauline Oliveros wrote and reflected a lot on deep listening, and she talked about the practice of walking as if you had your ears in your feet. Field recordings are my way of entering that dimension.

"Shatner's Theme" reminded me in some ways of "The Ramble". If there, the sound of your footsteps merged with birdsong and the breathing of the city, here the human whistling of Molly Lewis blends with the surrounding sounds. It's as if human beings were entirely part of what we perceive as nature, merging with non-human entities and non-human sounds.

Yes, I think that's true. "Shatner's Theme" is actually a kind of sci-fi track, since I'm playfully and jokingly alluding to "Star Trek" and, more broadly, to radio transmissions coming from some distant place. I also like the idea of interrupting the flow of the record with these messages that seem to come from outer space.

Loneliness is a theme you've explored in most of the new songs. I get the feeling your observations are grounded in personal experience, in the everyday life of a musician on the road, but do you think this sense of loneliness can be extended to a social discourse, or even shifted onto a more philosophical plane?

Yes, I use my own life to explore the theme of loneliness. It's also a theme that comes up often in popular music in general. Human beings are constantly searching for companionship and love, much like many other living creatures. It's a survival strategy in the face of the boundless void that reigns just beyond Earth's atmosphere.

You also included a fragment in French, Attente Téléphonique, whose protagonist is a lone traveler.

Yes, I wrote it while I was on tour in Europe and feeling a bit lost, unable to communicate in the local language. But I pushed the idea further, pointing out that ultimately we're all just travelers moving through life. In any case, it's a feature of the human condition that we can't communicate every aspect of existence through language, which can only ever be a translation of our experience. Anne Carson, the classicist and translator we mentioned earlier, said as much on several occasions: those who translate do their best, but lived experience will always be one step further.

Yes, that's definitely part of the video. I find music videos can be really interesting when they give a song a new life. Rather than simply being a descriptive form of the music, they can build on it and become an art form in their own right. I loved being able to dedicate a love letter to New York, a city I love and the only one where I've truly lived. But the video is also about noticing signs around us and extracting, or filtering, only what we want to see. That's a distinctly short-sighted attitude, one that offers limiting and limited points of view. And it ties into the song's idea that heartbreak, too, can be equally short-sighted. Besides, the signs you spot around NY are fantastic, funny and weird. Even as the city modernizes, I don't think it has completely erased its own humanity.

Do you think Sisyphus could be a key figure not just in this song, but across the album as a whole, particularly in relation to the theme of loneliness?

Yes, the routine in "Delphinium Blue" is definitely Sisyphean, but at the same time there's beauty in what surrounds it. Camus writes that one must imagine Sisyphus happy, and that's a perspective that flips the myth on its head. When I wrote "Only One", in that symbol on the window I only saw suffering and despair, but it could actually have been a sign of hope during a particularly dark period for me. It was a message of hope I couldn't see at the time, but one I fully grasp only now, four years later.

(photo Credits by Pooneh Ghana; interview published on July 14, 2024)

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