‘Between Us and The Universe…’ - Cassandra Jenkins
I know it’s a terrible habit, but I was lying in bed one day scrolling through Instagram. One story, another story, another story, until inevitably an ad popped up. I was in something of a purgatory in life, a no man’s land between points, waiting for something to happen. It was difficult to see progress or appreciate the changes in real time. The ad arrived.
‘Chin up.’
A figure spoke through a superimposed blooming flower. I didn’t know what the flower was, but I was captivated.
‘Stay on task.’
I couldn’t help but listen. It was only a handful of seconds, but I ignored the next story and wound it back. Who was this? I hadn’t heard of the artist before, though the single was brand-new. I immediately found it on YouTube. I listen to a song every morning before starting my day, and for a while this one was it.
‘My Light, My Destroyer’ album artwork by Wyndham Garnett.
This is the story of ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ by Cassandra Jenkins. It’s a story familiar to many; of hearing the single, buying the album, and seeing the artist live – this is told from our perspective. But there’s also the story of how this album was made, how it was written, recorded and then performed live. Those perspectives are from Cassandra Jenkins, producer/engineer Andrew Lappin, songwriter/producer Stephanie Marziano and live band member Faye Thompson in exclusive interviews with Moths and Giraffes.
But first, what was that song we heard while scrolling?
“I probably wrote, ‘I got the job at the flower shop,’ in my notebook dozens of times before I figured out how to follow it up. The rest of the song was a somewhat osmotic process—over time, I absorbed my surroundings and became intimately acquainted with cut flowers and the personal meaning began to hold. I wrote endless verses to this song over the course of six years, and even after I had dialled in the remaining three, I was whittling away at the lyrics right up until the last minute.” – Cassandra Jenkins
I didn’t study the lyrics for ‘Delphinium Blue’, I heard them and they just stuck. Cassandra’s anthemic wordless melody soundtracked my days, the kind where you think to yourself, ‘Oh, I heard a cool track recently – I need to listen to it again.’ The way Jenkins could trace the methodical workings of a florist and translate them into meaningful song is the striking component of her lyricism.
‘Wash the windows. Count the cash. Cut the stems, to make them last. Keep it cool, behind the glass.’
This kind of work, with its repetitive, manual nature gives a person much room to think. Especially so if you were thinking of someone in particular. ‘I sweep the floors but I’m talking to you, I see your eyes in the delphinium too, I’ve become a servant to their blue.’ If I were in a crush, yearning or in love, ‘Delphinium Blue’ would surely be my pining song.
Image Credit: Pooneh Ghana.
“‘Delphinium Blue’ had a few incarnations. Before I started producing this record, Cass had tried ‘Delphinium’ in a few different ways. I remember there being a more straight-ahead indie rock version that just didn't work and felt pretty plodding and aimless. A little bit later she was hanging with her friend Isaac Eiger and they sort of charted a new direction for the song, a little more New Age with mystique. The preliminary synths and vocal motif came from that. But the song and production were still somewhat incomplete, and it was unclear how it would fit in the context of the album.’ – Andrew Lappin
The music is a juxtaposition of electronica and instruments with distinctly human expression. Michael Coleman plays a variety of Yamaha, Korg and Roland keyboards while co-writer, engineer and producer Isaac Eiger contributes synths as well as guitar and drum programming. In the more organic rhythm section, Kosta Galanopoulos and Spencer Zahn performed drums and fretless bass respectively.
Andrew Lappin at Figure 8 Recording (Brooklyn, New York). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
Co-producer Andrew Lappin has worked with a variety of artists over the past ten years, including Marina, Steady Holiday, Big Red Machine, and more recently for Lucy Dacus’ 2025 album ‘Forever Is a Feeling’. Lappin laid down various instruments across ‘My Light, My Destroyer’, including percussion on ‘Delphinium Blue’.
“When we were working on the rest of the record it didn't seem like ‘Delphinium’ was going to make it. We had our hands full with other songs. But I could tell Cassandra was excited about it though and I also recognized that it had something enchanting, even if I was unsure if it was going to fit in the greater sound of the album. But I woke up one morning and had this idea to bring it more into the world of the other songs, to give it more of a living and breathing quality since it was very synth-heavy and kind of unfinished, production-wise. So I presented a general concept to Cass, then called my friends Kosta Galanopoulos to play drums and Spencer Zahn to do fretless bass, and the song just sort of sprang to life, leaped out of the speakers more, and we kept going from there.”
A vital component of Cassandra’s music – not only on ‘My Light, My Destroyer’, but also on her 2017 debut album ‘Play Till You Win’ and landmark follow-up ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’ is her ability to defy classification. In decades past, you’d have a ‘soul’ record, an ‘RnB’ record, a ‘rock’ record. What would the press have said ‘Delphinium Blue’ was in the 70’s or 80’s? Now, every solo artist appears to be a ‘singer/songwriter’.
“I am very much a fan of records by Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, and Laurie Anderson and I saw an opportunity to bring the song into that world (Cassandra is also a big Laurie Anderson fan). I figured, ‘hey, Cassandra gets labelled singer-songwriter, aren't these aforementioned artists also singers and songwriters? Isn't that term sort of meaningless, so why can't Enya or Kate Bush be classified as singer songwriters?’ And that helped us to create a through-line across the record....take an empty term like ‘singer-songwriter’ and imbue it with our own meaning. Something meaningless can become an infinite possibility because it's an opportunity to impart your own perspective.” – Andrew Lappin
After exploring Cassandra’s singles, there was no question of whether to buy the album when it arrived in July 2024. Over the summer and autumn, it became a quiet companion. Seeing a tour was coming up, and knowing this artist from New York was unlikely to play the UK as regularly as her British contemporaries, I wasted no time in buying a ticket.
Pre-show view at EartH Theatre, London, November 26th 2024. Image Credit: Moths and Giraffes.
Witnessing ‘Delphinium’ live was the icing on the cake. All the elements I’d grown to love on the single were amplified and projected out onto the audience far beyond the intricacies of its studio counterpart. Hearing the tap of the drums un-miked between sets booming up from the wooden stage exemplified the fact that what we were hearing wasn’t purely from the PA system. Indeed, the reverberation was compounded by the uncomfortable shiny wooden steps on which the audience were sat, with the band’s amps, drum shells and reedy saxophone focussed upwards into the peeling chasmic theatre ceiling.
With the added noise, Cassandra had to contend not with quiet studio surroundings, but the vibrations and intensity of a live band. The delicacy of her voice was maintained with a more determined edge, and the sustained choral moments were like watching a whole garden blooming on stage in real-time.
“In the end, ‘Delphinium Blue’ turned out to be one of my favorite songs on the record. Funny how often that happens, something that almost doesn't make it ends up being pulled back from the brink of deletion and becomes a triumph!” – Andrew Lappin
Having toured Europe and the UK, London’s sold-out EartH Theatre was the final stop on Sunday November 26th. Cassandra was both accompanied and supported by Scottish trio LYLO - their album ‘Thoughts Of Never’ was released in the summer of 2024, just prior to Jenkins’ record. Track nine, ‘Downtown’ features the backing vocals of Cassandra, a song the band played in their opening set.
LYLO were intermittently augmented by saxophonist Faye Thompson, who during breaks in her performance would take a seat in the audience to watch the band. Thompson would also play as part of Cassandra’s ensemble for this special date in London:
‘Thank you. Thank you so much. This is Faye by the way. I’ve got to do a few shows with Faye here in London - Faye’s London-based by the way. And I can’t imagine playing a show in London without her. It’s true! It’s really incredible to be playing all these songs in a room full of people. They still feel very new even though we’ve just been on tour for three weeks, and singing that last song, I’m getting a little bit choked up, because I don’t want it to end.’ – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
In a strange coincidence, we’d seen Faye Thompson just weeks before at another London event. The Chateau curated a performance of Bronski Beat’s debut album ‘The Age of Consent’, featuring an entire line-up of queer musicians to be played live only twice at Queen Elizabeth Hall. With special guest vocalists and a choir, Thompson would accompany the six-piece band on a few of the songs. An impactful show that absolutely should be touring.
Cassandra Jenkins at All Points East, London, August 26th 2022 with Faye Thompson (left). Image Credit: André Langlois.
We asked Faye Thompson how she first met and began performing with Cassandra Jenkins:
‘I got a message out of the blue from a friend in the US asking me if I wanted to do a gig with Mitski and whether they could pass on my phone number. After I had the expected freak-out, I got another message clarifying that the gig was playing with someone who was supporting Mitski on tour, but she didn't actually get around to telling me the name, just that she would pass my number on. I hadn't heard anything and wasn't sure when I might, so I tried to figure out who the gig might be with and worked out it was probably Cassandra.’
The tour in question was for Mitski’s ‘Laurel Hell’, which spanned three continents for the majority of 2022. The UK and Ireland received two rounds of the tour in April and June. It was this second round that saw Cassandra Jenkins supporting in Cardiff and Liverpool.
‘Initially I was mostly excited about the prospect of supporting Mitski, but then I listened to An Overview on Phenomenal Nature and absolutely fell in love with the album and that completely eclipsed that earlier excitement! I reached out to Cass on Instagram to share how much her record resonated with me and to personally make sure she had my details (just in case my US friend hadn't managed to pass them on after all), and then my first gig with her was in Cardiff opening for Mitski!’ – Faye Thompson
The show at EartH was introduced with, and broken up by many ‘Shatners’. An important element to the sound of Cassandra Jenkins is her use and manipulation of field recordings. Some are incorporated into the fabric of her songs, as heard on ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’.
For ‘My Light, My Destroyer,’ the album is interspersed with four field recording interludes – ‘Shatner’s Theme’ is the first of these. It centres around a bewitching whistled melody performed by Molly Lewis among cricket and bird song recorded by Cassandra.
Shatner is of course William Shatner, and while Jenkins was making this record, he was still the oldest person to have travelled into space (that record was surpassed in May 2024 by Edward Dwight). In ‘Aurora, IL’, Cassandra dedicates three verses to Shatner’s 2021 spaceflight, set to a backdrop of solo touring for ‘An Overview’; ‘And when he came down crying, on the local news, he couldn’t stop talking about the colour blue…’
Studio lyrics for ‘Aurora, IL’. Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
When performing these interlude pieces live, their ambient nature allows room in their arrangements to vary. For an impassioned spontaneous artist like Faye Thompson, this is like a playground:
‘As predominantly an improvising musician, I spend a lot of time doing gigs where you're taking risks and putting trust in yourself and the people you're playing with, so it wasn't as scary as it could have been! It helps that the band all know each other and are friends so we know we've got each other if something doesn't go quite right. I think sometimes that all-or-nothing feeling from shows like that can actually help push the music further in the moment.’
Andrew Lappin with Adam Brisbin at Wax LTD Studios in Los Angeles, California. (Adam played guitar on ‘Devotion’, ‘Clams Casino’, ‘Aurora, IL’ and ‘Petco’). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
As well as the band pushing the music further in the moment, if you were to buy a copy of the album from Rough Trade, it would include a special ‘Cosmic Companion’ disc. Five extra tracks that expand on the field recording side of the album, including material on the record itself. ‘Shatner’s Redux’ features a longer whistling take from Molly Lewis and more sound design from Meg Duffy. Producer Andrew Lappin mixed and mastered the bonus disc:
“I'm always recording, even just to catch little snippets of conversation or one-off ideas in between takes. On the companion disc, we had a lot of additional sound design stuff we did with Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) for Shatner's Theme, so we had more material to build bonus tracks. Cassandra is also a documentarian of life, always taking field recordings, so she has a library of things to pull from. She's like an audio ‘How To with John Wilson.’”
‘How To with John Wilson’ is an HBO documentary series made by its host predominantly on the streets of New York. Though each episode was made with an intended outline, there were also a lot of unintended moments that moulded what the viewer eventually saw. These moments were shaped by the people John Wilson met and the conversations he had, something you could never really script.
‘That’s…Mars. Do you see where it’s really reddish?’
‘My Light, My Destroyer’ and its Cosmic Companion also has such encounters. One unscripted exchange is a moment of discovery, a realisation of how small we really are compared to Earth’s own cosmic companions. Cassandra Jenkins tells us more behind the story of ‘Betelgeuse’:
‘I was on the terrace at the back of my parents’ apartment. I live two floors below them, and occasionally, I hear a quiet knock, and my mom, a science teacher, will pop down and ask me to look at something—usually a weather event, the moon, a notable bird, or, of course, something she’s trying to troubleshoot on her iPad. It was a quiet, warm evening, and I had been in the regular practice of recording, so it was natural to grab my binaural headphones—great for clandestine recording—before following her upstairs. It was like any other one of my countless evenings at home, nothing out of the ordinary, and I just happened to be recording it. But something about it made me appreciate those moments and how fleeting they are, as well as the connections being made in the recording—between me and my mom, and between us and the universe.’
Jesse McGinty at Wax LTD Studios in Los Angeles, California. (Jesse plays a variety of horns on ‘Devotion’, ‘Betelgeuse’, ‘Tape and Tissue’ and ‘Only One’). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
Almost three minutes in length, the conversation between Sandy and Cassandra Jenkins is soundtracked by modest, but essential accompaniment. Most notably are the piano flourishes between phrases by Michael Coleman and the soft, complementary horn section laid down by Jesse McGinty. We asked Andrew Lappin if there were complications as a mix engineer to bring out the smaller details of the field recordings:
“To get the field recordings to sit alongside musical recordings, like in ‘Betelgeuse,’ took a little bit of manoeuvring. The conversation between Cass and her mom in that song had a lot of background noise, so we had to de-noise it a bit to make room for the musical elements. I wrote a horn arrangement for that song, with some improvised elements as well, and it required that Jesse McGinty and I really listened to the flow of the conversation between Cass and her mom and find spaces to embellish musically. Same with the piano. It's just about listening and not stepping on anything important to the narrative. So then in the mix it's really just about automating, panning, etc, weaving elements around each other to allow everything to breathe.”
‘Pull me apart, want you to see who I am. Pull me apart, put me back together again…’
On the record, the soft musical textures of ‘Betelgeuse’ transition into ‘Omakase’ with just a moment of silence between them. The word ‘Omakase’ is Japanese, a phrase you would speak to a chef in a restaurant meaning ‘I leave it up to you’. That invites the chef to craft a menu of their own accord, with all the decisions and finer details in their capable hands. Omakase Berries as referenced in the track are a top-tier strawberry originating in the Japanese Alps and grown in New Jersey.
‘Cassandra is wonderful to work with in the studio and beyond. We definitely saw eye to eye on this record thematically and sonically, and were generally aligned on almost everything. I credit this to extensive conversations we'd have before we even got into the studio. We got on the same page very early on.’ – Andrew Lappin
The lyric of ‘Omakase’ very much embodies its Japanese translation, in the words she leaves herself in the hands of someone else, ‘Oh, one look is all it takes…’ This song is the closest to a title track on ‘My Light, My Destroyer’, with spoken word by Hailey Benton Gates – the same Hailey who inspired the penultimate track on ‘An Overview’. ‘Omakase’, though not a single, is certainly the focal point of the album, a song in which all the other songs bear witness to.
Andrew Lappin at Figure 8 Recording (Brooklyn, New York). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
A key component of Cassandra Jenkins’ artistry is her pinpoint pronunciation of every phrase, every word in her lyric. Across her catalogue, you get the sense that when Jenkins was making these records, that every movement through the lyric was scrutinised – its flow, how it rolls off the tongue and interacts with the music. Andrew Lappin elaborates:
‘Cass has such an open mind, is a clear communicator, and is always willing to see an idea through to its completion. When she was uncertain about something, she would be willing to follow my lead and explore possibilities. And she is such a hard worker, and very meticulous. When doing vocals we would pore over the lyric sheets, making sure breaths were happening in the right spot, talking about pronunciations of words and phrasing. Small details that had a high impact.’
Elevating the words in ‘Omakase’ are musicians with contrasting instruments such as vibraphone by Josh Kaufman and Dave Harrington on pedal steel. As well as playing bass, Dandy McDowell provides a rare male backing vocal, as if the feeling between the two characters in the song is mutual. Of all the tracks on the album, ‘Omakase’ has the most instrumentalists contributing by far, and their interaction with the music was as much a capturing of interaction between each other.
Andrew Lappin and Cassandra Jenkins at Wax LTD Studios (Los Angeles, California). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
“A lot of this record was done with a core of musicians playing live together. We'd meet in the morning at the studio, have some coffee, discuss the song we were going to work on, and Cass and I would give the ensemble a little bit of a preliminary direction in terms of vibe and feel. For some songs were more prescriptive than others, though we always tried to leave something open to interpretation so the musicians could express their perspectives as well. I'd also do some band-leading/musical directing, going over chord charts and making some chord substitutions and talking about areas where maybe we wanted to adjust the form or harmony. Then we'd just start rolling, seeing what ideas came out. Listening back together every so often, evaluating. When something was working, Cass and I would speak up and would then tell the group that we were heading in the right direction. We'd refine from there. Ultimately, we'd just follow the energy of the room and direct as needed. And then once we had the core performance, we would work on overdubs, adding other layers, etc. and ultimately recording her vocals. Most of the record happened this way, except a couple songs that were done more ‘brick by brick.’” – Andrew Lappin
Of course, it’s not possible to take ten or more people on tour to reproduce the sounds heard on the record exactly live. For the most part, Cassandra’s band for the UK and Europe consisted of just herself and the three members of LYLO. Since Faye Thompson was only on board for the final show in London (and some earlier promotional gigs), we wondered how a touring band could incorporate another player into their line-up so smoothly:
‘I was a little prepared in that we'd done some intimate shows at Rough Trade earlier in the year where we played a few tunes from her new album, so they weren't all completely fresh on the day. With the tunes we hadn't done, I spent plenty of time listening to the new record and thinking about how I'd approach them on the day or if there were any melodies on the recordings that would be good to pick out on my instrument.’ – Faye Thompson
Not every song on ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ features saxophone - ‘Petco’ is the third single from the album and has a more traditional rock band arrangement. No fewer than four guitarists play on Cassandra’s homage to America’s second-biggest pet store chain. Hearing people cheer in London for Pets At Home was a rare moment of patriotism:
“As we’ve travelled, I’ve been collecting pet store names from each country, and I know that the Petco of the UK is like Pets At Home, right? Erm, and I just wanna mention something, I know that in Glasgow there is Petcetera. You can either clap or boo that one I think. I asked Paris what their pet store chain is, and they said, ‘It doesn’t exist’. Uh, and the other night, I asked the crowd ‘What is your pet store?’ and someone said, something that I interpreted as ‘Paw Castle’, I was like ‘Oh yeah, we’re in the UK, there’s like castles here.’ They corrected me and said, ‘Actually it’s like the painter – Paul Castle.’ Yes, cool. Erm, and yeah. I already know what it is here. I’ve never been to a Pets At Home, but, maybe tomorrow.” – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
El Kempner and Cassandra Jenkins. (El plays guitar on ‘Petco’ and ‘Only One’). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
It’s no surprise the sound of ‘Petco’ is likened to the alternative scene of the mid to late 90’s. There were many influences to this album while Cassandra was making it, classic songwriters like Neil Young, Tom Petty and Annie Lennox. David Bowie’s closing chapter ‘Blackstar’ also factors in, but it’s the music of Cassandra’s high school years that hold the most influence on ‘Petco’, with artists like PJ Harvey, The Breeders, Pavement and Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’.
Even at low volume, ‘Petco’ has a way of hitting just as it would if the speakers were blaring it out. As well as managing elements of performing, arranging, engineering and producing, Andrew Lappin also mixed the album. Here he describes how this multi-angle way of working influences the process of mixing:
“I typically start a mix on my own, then share a first pass with the artist. That's more or less how I usually work, and how we did this record. When I produce a record and then mix it, there is a lot of ‘mixing as I go’ and because I also engineered the record, I am trying to get the music to sound as close to done as possible from the second I hit ‘record.’ So that means being very diligent about instrument choice, mic placement, processing, etc on the way in, and of course making sure the arrangements are where they need to be. A good arrangement = a good mix, 9 times out of 10.”
‘Uh, speaking of pets, here’s a song called Clams Casino.’ – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
The fourth single from ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ is ‘Clams Casino’, a piece that began its origins while Cassandra was touring ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’. An early track on the record, it serves to bring the mood up after the quiet revelatory opener ‘Devotion’. With the first song like the sun rising on a new day, ‘Clams Casino’ is this artist getting out of bed. Having already directed the videos for ‘Delphinium Blue’ and ‘Petco’, ‘Clams’ continues the trend of Cassandra realising her concepts visually, shedding her weighty suit from the past both figuratively and literally.
Noah Hecht at Figure 8 Recording, Brooklyn, New York. (Noah plays drums on ‘Clams Casino’, ‘Aurora, IL’ and ‘Only One’). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
When listening to the album in its entirety, although it’s clear this is a group effort made with love, the attention to detail from the artist herself is also striking. Verses are written and re-written, with scraps of poems combined and multiple attempts of songs made to arrive at the best version of themselves. From directing the music videos to scrutinising the arrangements and co-producing across the board, Andrew Lappin describes how Jenkins was also involved in the mixing process:
“When it came time to ‘mix’ I didn't sit down and start over, but more or less tweaked from where I had everything set up to that point. Then Cass would give me notes, and they were typically small things. Turning up a vocal phrase here or there, level stuff, etc. Occasionally a vocal treatment tweak. But nothing crazy. We had done the hard work before mixing, so mixing became more of a ‘buttoning it up’ sort of endeavor. Nothing radically transformed in the mix phase, as far as I can remember. If we had wanted to radically change something, it would have been on the production/recording side, not the mix side. Mixing was, like I said above, more of a ‘sealing the deal’ project.”
‘I wrote a lot of that last song while I was on tour by myself, and basically, it’s just a song about missing all my bandmates. Erm, and it was also somewhat inspired by the next song I’m gonna play.’ – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
Of course, Jenkins didn’t just play material from ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ at EartH Theatre, she also played a majority of ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’ and concluded the show by merging two pieces from its companion album, ‘(An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’.
The second ‘Overview’ expands the concept of a typical demos/alternative takes record and makes it essential listening. ‘Michelangelo’ appears in demo form, while ‘New Bikini’ is a first take and ‘Hard Drive’ divulges more of a field recording that opened the original album version. ‘Ambiguous Norway’ exists as an instrumental excerpt. Before playing the latter at EartH Theatre, Cassandra invited the audience to think of people whom we might like to share the moment with:
“I wanted to tell you about a little tradition that a friend of mine passed on to me, that I wanna pass on to all of you. I feel like this is a really beautiful space for it. It’s called the Cosmic Guestlist. And, if you haven’t heard of this before, it’s basically an invitation to invite anyone here tonight that can’t be here in physical form to join us in a cosmic sense. So to give you some ideas, I opened it up to Paris and someone invited Proust that night. And uh, it could also be…your cat. She- my cat’s on the guestlist every night. She’s not with us anymore! But, she’s here. Erm, we put our Grandpas on there. When we were in Dublin, we just put all Irish ancestors on there. Prince came one night, David Bowie. So, whoever is coming to mind when I mention this idea, the first person that comes to mind when you think, ‘Damn I wish they were here,’ just remember them now. Some people are always on the list and this is a song about one of them.” – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
Live at EartH Theatre, London, November 26th 2024. Image used with kind permission.
‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’ is an album for healing, and it isn’t hard to see why fans have such a profound connection to it. With lyrics like ‘We’re gonna put your heart back together,’ in ‘Hard Drive’, or ‘If you're bruised or scraped, or any kind of broken, the water, it cures everything,’ from ‘New Bikini’, this prelude to ‘Ambiguous Norway’ towards the end of the show was perfectly placed. Cassandra explains the origins of the Cosmic Guestlist:
‘I used to play in my friend Erika Spring’s solo project around Brooklyn for a few years. Before every show, she invited me to add people/presences to the guest list, and I adopted the tradition from her. The 12 archangels were always present on her list, along with friends and family who couldn’t be there in person. It’s so grounding to be around her, and I have always felt like she’s deeply in touch with the supernatural.’
‘Ambiguous Norway’ (and the album’s greater mood) addresses the passing of Silver Jews and Purple Mountains frontman and songwriter David Berman. It was Berman’s last project as Purple Mountains that Jenkins was set to tour with in 2019, before David succumbed to suicide in August that year. The opening lyric to the song refers to a suit, ‘My suit came in the mail today, we settled on navy blue.’ Could this be the same suit being shed in ‘Clams Casino’?
Cassandra Jenkins with drummer Justin Allan at EartH Theatre, November 26th 2024. Image Credit: @liln1 on Instagram.
With ‘Overview’ shows from 2022 under her belt, it’s no surprise that Faye Thompson would also be playing this older material with the band in 2024 as well. We asked Faye what she enjoyed most about performing this music live:
‘I think a big part of liking performing her music is just that it's such good music! But I also really like performing with her because she's very supportive of me doing my sax/electronics thing when we perform together, meaning I'm able to contribute a piece of myself to this music which I love. That's something which I value a lot when making music with other people, and not everybody is so open to those explorations.’
‘Soft tug on my sleeve, I know you, dressed up in bows made of scotch Tape and Tissue, I wish you could see the garden reach through paved ground. Where are you now?’
Not every song from ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ was performed at EartH Theatre. Preceded by the fourth and final field recording interlude ‘Attente Téléphonique’ featuring the voice of Matice Maino, ‘Tape and Tissue’ is one of the most downbeat pieces on the record. It’s a combination of all the elements that make this song move like you’re staring out of a train window into a busy cityscape.
Spencer Zahn at Wax LTD Studios, Los Angeles, California. (Spencer plays various basses on ‘Devotion’, ‘Delphinium Blue’ and ‘Tape and Tissue’). Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
‘I’m terrified for our eyes to meet, but if I see you, I won’t cross to the other side anymore, anymore. I wanna stand right where I am now, where I am now.’
Through three poetic verses, the voice of Cassandra Jenkins is effortlessly just above a whisper – though the skill required to keep her voice that way isn’t to be underestimated. The horn ensemble by Jesse McGinty is a constant presence amid the jazz rhythm section of drummer Austin Vaughn and double bass (and vibraphone) by Spencer Zahn. Guitarist Grey McMurray upstrokes between verses as if his instrument is actually a sitar. Percussionist Andrew Maguire plays a vital role in the continuing flow of the track, anchored by Andrew Lappin’s piano. The producer and co-writer elaborates more on how the album’s most intriguing track came together:
“We actually wrote the song ‘Tape and Tissue’ around a field recording, following the cadence of the speaker in the recording. Ultimately, we muted the field recording as the song took on a life of its own and the field recording felt like it had overstayed its welcome in that particular piece, but that was a very interesting approach, writing a song around something non-musical, trying to find the rhythm and feel in something non-musical. It was a cool exercise, for sure.”
“My friend Steph Marziano is in the house tonight. We wrote this next song together, and she also was sort of my spirit guide through a lot of writing this recent album. I struggled a little while with this record, and at a certain point, you know, I thought I had it, and then I realised I didn’t. And, you know that feeling, it’s a terrible feeling. Uh, but Steph called me. She said, I won’t do the accent, but she’s like, ‘How you doing?’ ‘Not good. Everything I’ve ever done is terrible. I don’t know what to do.’ She said, ‘Oh mate, you’re in the valley of despair, don’t worry about it.’ ‘Valley of despair? Oh, the valley of despair.’ And from that point forward I was just like, ‘The valley of despair, really into that place.’ And then uh, we made a record. Only One is the song we wrote together, and it sat on the hard drive for a really long time, I think I was afraid of it. But, with her encouragement… this is Only One.’ – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
‘Only One’ is the lead single on ‘My Light, My Destroyer’, and while it’s not out of place on the album, it’s undoubtedly the poppiest song Cassandra Jenkins has ever released. With our love blooming for ‘Delphinium Blue’, going back to this earlier single before the album came out is what sealed it. Co-written with Stephanie Marziano, eagle-eyed fans will notice something called ‘The Hot Tub Carrot Machine’ getting a mention in the album liner-notes.
“‘Only One’ caught me by surprise. We met on a sort of blind songwriter date—friends of ours introduced us over email, and we planned to meet and write together at her Airbnb (with a hot tub) in the Los Angeles hills. Before we met, we made a playlist of songs we liked and called it ‘Hot Tub Carrot Machine’ because we promised ourselves that if we wrote a song, we’d go for a dip in the hot tub at the end of the day— I love what a dangling carrot can do for motivation.” – Cassandra Jenkins
Cassandra Jenkins at the Airbnb, late February 2023. Image courtesy of Stephanie Marziano, used with kind permission from Cassandra Jenkins.
Currently based in London, Stephanie Marziano has a variety of writing, performing, producing and mixing credits with artists including Hayley Williams (of Paramore), Matilda Mann, Prima Queen and Chloe Moriondo. All this aside, we had to ask Steph more about ‘Hot Tub Carrot Machine’:
‘My favourite Playlist! The Airbnb had a hot tub, and anyone who knows me knows I'm obsessed with hot tubs. I kept telling Cassandra that if we finished a part of the song, we’d get to jump in the hot tub—hence the name Carrot, like the dangling carrot saying. We spent a lot of time listening to and talking about that playlist. A lot of the songs we loved had this really cool juxtaposition of either half-time drums with double-time vocals or half-time vocals with double-time drums. There were a lot of Porches, Charlotte Cornfield, Orion Sun, and Pavement.’
Cassandra Jenkins and Stephanie Marziano in the aforementioned hot tub, late February 2023. Image courtesy of Stephanie Marziano, used with kind permission from Cassandra Jenkins.
‘Only One’ continues the chill vibe heard throughout most of ‘My Light, My Destroyer’. Is the love in the lyrics the same one hinted at across the album? In ‘Devotion’, there is mention of time; ‘And I felt my arms, rise light as feathers, and the clock hit me like a hammer.’ In ‘Only One’, a clock is woven into the first verse, ‘Blink my eyes open, punch the clock in the face.’ There is also yearning across this album, from the daydreaming in ‘Delphinium Blue’ to ‘One look is all it takes’ in ‘Omakase’ to the repeated question in ‘Only One’ – ‘How long will this pain in my chest last? How long will it last?’
‘Every writing session is different, but with Cassandra, it was really cathartic. The Airbnb had a grand piano in the living room, so we just sat there or on the sofa with guitars. I vividly remember the moment Cassandra sang the chorus melody for the first time—it was so exciting. We actually re-wrote the verses about 15 times to make sure they served the chorus perfectly. By the end of those few days, we had a rough demo that sounded pretty poppy at the time. I think I had to convince Cassandra that the final version wouldn’t turn out like that! Ha. We ended up rewriting parts and lyrics over Zoom a bunch more times, but the chorus melody always stayed. We also took a lot of breaks to hike and be out in nature. Sometimes when you’re writing songs, you can get stuck trying to finish something on the spot and end up going in circles. Being in LA, we really focused on letting the surroundings inspire us instead of trying to force anything.’ – Stephanie Marziano
Hiking between writing, late February 2023. Image courtesy of Stephanie Marziano, used with kind permission from Cassandra Jenkins.
Somehow, everything in the album up to this point builds to ‘Only One’, a transparently confessional track that embraces what this lyricist knew all along. Perhaps that’s why this songwriter was afraid of it. Could Cassandra Jenkins really be so bold to just say how it really is? You can’t help but hear this song and leave with its infectious chorus, ‘You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, the only one that I know how to love.’
“I was surprised that when we sat down at the piano, the chorus melody of ‘Only One’ just poured out of me along with what I thought were dummy lyrics. They felt too generic and poppy to be one of my songs. But that demo persisted in the annals of my hard drive, haunting me, for months. Before a solo show in Brooklyn, I dug it up to try and write verses to some of Steph’s drum beats (she’s also a drummer) and very quickly realized that we had a song. It kicked around in my head, and stray lyrics from my notes latched onto it over the course of the week. Each verse could be its own little short story, and I like writing songs that are a collection of memories strung together. I do consider us lucky in many respects—we managed to become friends and write a song, all without getting Hot Tub Fever!” – Cassandra Jenkins
Stephanie Marziano demoing at the Airbnb, late February 2023. Image courtesy of Stephanie Marziano, used with kind permission from Cassandra Jenkins.
Like ‘Petco’, the song’s music video is set in New York, reflecting the surroundings in which much of this album was conceived. Unlike later videos, Cassandra surrenders the finer details to directing duo Lydia Fine & Tony Blahd, with gorgeous results on 16mm film. From the release of the music video in April, it would be another three months before fans could hear the track in context with the rest of ‘My Light, My Destroyer’. For Steph Marziano, she wouldn’t hear the band playing the song live until seven months after it first came out. We asked her how it felt seeing the track brought to life beyond its studio version:
‘Without sounding too cheesy, I think that was honestly one of the best moments of my life! Ha. I actually had to rush from another gig to get there, so I wasn’t even sure I’d make it in time. I ended up sprinting up the stairs of the venue just as she finished the song right before. Cassandra's speech about the song was so beautiful, and the live rendition definitely made me tear up. It was one of those moments that just reminded me why I love doing what I do. That last time I had heard her play it was while recording with the band so it was amazing to hear it in a venue as close to my heart as EartH.’
‘Thank you, we’re gonna do something we haven’t done before. This is called Hayley.’ – Cassandra Jenkins (Live at EartH Theatre)
Playing a final two songs from ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’, the band returned for an encore with a surprise song not even featured on the printed setlist. ‘Hayley’ is the concluding track on ‘My Light, My Destroyer’, a reflective see-sawing of violin by Cassandra’s brother Reid and Isaiah Gage on cello. On the record, it’s listed as being recorded at ‘Chan Terrelle Sound’ in New York. But does that place really exist?
“It was recorded in her apartment in Manhattan, New York. You can hear some floorboards creaking as it's a very old building. I love that type of stuff. It was done layer by layer, with Reid and Isaiah recording separately. Reid did the string arrangement. It's a reprise/reimagining of ‘Only One,’ which is cool. Brings the album full circle. In the mix I tried to get it to sound more like an ensemble, which it does, since it was done brick by brick.” – Andrew Lappin
Stage setlist from EartH Theatre, November 26th 2024.
An instrumental on the original album, this reprise of ‘Only One’ is realised more thoroughly on the ‘Cosmic Companion’ with Cassandra delicately singing the song’s chorus to the lush string arrangement. The performance at EartH Theatre in London was special for many reasons, not only for the addition of Faye Thompson to the ensemble and this surprise song - Reid Jenkins was also a member of the band this evening. It would be the siblings’ first performance on an international stage together.
Emerging after ninety seconds of continuous applause were only Reid, Cassandra and Faye for this special rendition of ‘Hayley/Only One’. With co-writer Reid taking the melodic lead as on the album, Thompson accompanies the violinist, substituting cello for saxophone as seamlessly as if she had always been there. Until the final notes of the piece died away, you could hear a pin drop as the trio played.
‘Playing that encore I think was actually the first time we properly played that song together! We couldn't really run it in soundcheck aside from Reid and I talking it through in EartH's green room before going on stage. That was definitely the point in the show flying closest to the sun but I'm glad we pulled it off! I met Reid on the day, and it was really nice to get to know him through the music. Hayley is a lovely piece, and I think it's at its most powerful when listened to at the end of the record and you get a chance to take it in as part of the whole of My Light, My Destroyer. I feel the same about The Ramble, from An Overview.’ – Faye Thompson
From left to right: Daniel Nellis (aka Charles Howl), Reid Jenkins, Justin Allan and Cassandra Jenkins at EartH Theatre. Image used with kind permission.
Could there have been a more perfect final night of a tour than at EartH on November 26th? The old rustic theatre, with its church-like reverb carried the music of Cassandra Jenkins beautifully. Spending weeks together, the members of LYLO and the artist were fully gelled together in their chemistry, comfortably realising the music live that on some songs had required more than twice the number of players in the studio.
It was a sold-out congregation of fans that were there equally for the old music and the new, paying close attention to Cassandra’s ever-precise articulation and breathing in the landscapes inspired by the field recordings between songs. My own memory of this show is more aural than visual, as I was inclined to close my eyes and peer into that dream-like world conjured by the music.
This performance was a meeting of collaborators too, LYLO having worked with Cassandra for their own album, so they too enriched the delivery of her music. With Faye Thompson previously playing auditoriums in front of Mitski fans, intimate shows and festival stages, she adds EartH Theatre as another memory in her Jenkins scrapbook. Living close to the edge in terms of rehearsal, but ultimately knocking it out of the park.
Cassandra Jenkins, Andrew Lappin and Stephanie Marziano. Image courtesy of Cassandra Jenkins.
Unlike other shows on the tour, there was not just one songwriter for the album at this performance, but three. Stephanie Marziano, first a co-writer, then a friend and spirit guide to the making of the record, witnessed the song they began charting in a Los Angeles Airbnb together live for the very first time. Of course, Reid Jenkins had co-written ‘Hayley’, and it comes as no surprise that Reid should appear elsewhere in the Cassandra Jenkins oeuvre.
It wasn’t just a meeting of fans, collaborators and friends. It was a meeting of family, bringing out the very best of these performers, with a lot more in common than the audience would’ve known:
‘Reid and Faye met just a few hours before the show, and most of the preparation was done in the green room. I loved introducing the two of them—not only because I love them both, but because there’s something really special about sharing your sibling with the people you’ve connected with in other parts of the world. And oddly, Faye has always reminded me of my brother a little bit—her sense of humor, her unique voice with her instrument, and maybe just the fact that she’s always made me feel really comfortable. Having family on stage with me always puts me in a different state– I become a bit of a kid again, for better or for worse.’ – Cassandra Jenkins
From left to right: Reid Jenkins, Daniel Nellis (aka Charles Howl), Justin Allan, Cassandra Jenkins, Jack Seaton and Faye Thompson. Image used with kind permission.
So woven into the fabric of this record is the poetic expression of companionship, beginning by ‘breaking open’ to ‘the glow of a single candle’ in ‘Devotion’ and the bravery of admitting ‘I don’t wanna laugh alone anymore’ in ‘Clams Casino’. It’s no surprise we became hooked on the journey in ‘Delphinium Blue’ with that addictive feeling of a crush in such a tangible environment. You can breathe the perfume in the air. Indeed, the field recording interludes (‘Music?’ ‘Oh music, sorry’) are like daydreams from the flower shop.
‘Omakase’ too is full of dreams; ‘I dreamt you fed me Omakase berries, I dreamt we were coyotes…’ but it’s also a surrendering to the ying and yang of the album’s title. ‘My lover, my light, my destroyer, my meteorite.’ Are we made by love, or are we ruined by it? Perhaps we are sculpted, moulded by it – changed forever every time it happens.
In ‘Petco’, Cassandra Jenkins asks, ‘What is my true nature?’ Another question we all ask of ourselves at one time or another. Are we good enough? Am I good enough? ‘Can I take care of anything or anyone I’m eyeing?’ Like the title of this album, like its captivating artwork and colour palette, the greater questions are more cosmic. ‘I wish I could wish you well, where are you now?’ In both sound and lyric, ‘Tape and Tissue’ serves as a bridge, a look through binoculars at ‘An Overview on Phenomenal Nature’. Looking back before looking forward.
You have to become agreeable with yourself, at peace with the world around you before you can truly love or love again. Even if it sends you to The Valley of Despair, even if it pains this songwriter to pen a poppy song with a catchy refrain, ‘You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, the only one that I know how to love.’ The universe, seemingly with its own agenda, will often leave you clues, ‘Another formula, everywhere I turn, everything adds up to your number.’
These 37 minutes, crafted so lovingly by the artist, her co-producers, writers and musicians address our place, the dot on which we occupy, the universe of thoughts we have, and the universe out there. Aren’t we all just wandering around, taking it in, dreaming, falling in love, grieving, visiting the pet store, looking at the sky above and the world below and marvelling at it all? And isn’t it all so beautiful.
‘I might never land on solid ground, part of me will always be in the clouds…’
So what next? After playing a handful of western states in her home country, Cassandra Jenkins is set to return to the UK for a short tour in June, with sporadic festival dates in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and back to England for Green Man in August. More dates are set to be announced soon. Are you telling me you read this whole article and you’re not gonna be there? Come on.
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Purchase ‘My Light, My Destroyer’ as well as previous works by Cassandra Jenkins on her Bandcamp page.
For more information about Cassandra Jenkins, including upcoming shows, visit her official website.
Follow Andrew Lappin on Instagram @andrewlappin.
Follow Stephanie Marziano on Instagram @steph.marziano.
Follow Faye Thompson on Instagram @fayejams.
Follow Cassandra Jenkins on Instagram @cassandrajenkins and on Facebook @CassandraJenkinsOfficial.
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