+++
Pictured:
Inara George Photo credit: Self
Portrait.
+++
PLAY, POST
& SHARE
“Brother” by
Inara George from the upcoming three-song bundle “The Youth of Angst,” out June
5th.
“‘No one will
ever know you better than your brother can,’ says George, who cites a couple of moments in the song that reflect that
bond. ‘And when I lost the game / You wrapped your, your arms around me / You
said, ‘Don’t let it get you down / Cause I’m your brother,’ she sings in a
voice that would make a recitation of HTML code sound like the sweetest of
memories.”
+++
About | Inara
George
Inara George has been getting together with producer Wendy Wang for a couple of hours, here
and there, off and on over the past few years, working on a handful of songs
that will now be released as the three-song bundle “The Youth of Angst” via Release
Me Records on June 5th.
“Wendy started playing with The
Bird and The Bee when we released our second album,” George says. “I remember being impressed with her right away. That
was about 12 years ago, and since then she’s become an in-demand producer and
songwriter, as well as a dear friend and collaborator. I’m equally proud of her
and in awe of her.”
George continues, “There was no rush on my side, and Wendy’s been super busy with her own career,
so it took a few years to finish by getting together for a few hours every so
often. Maybe I had it in mind to make a full album? Or maybe a traditional EP?”
As it turns out, George
got the word “bundle” stuck in her head after a conversation with a friend.
“Maybe I just thought she said ‘bundle?’”
No matter, it stuck, and in fact “The Youth of Angst” feels like a bundle. Fresh, even considering its
long development, and innocent, even with a song called “Sex In Cars”.
“I wrote ‘Sex
In Cars’ after the artist Terry
Allen asked if I’d be a part of an
art installation he was creating for The
Contemporary Austin. When he asked me to write the song, I immediately
thought of a photograph by RJ
Shaughnessy that I had bought as a gift for my husband.” The cover of “The Youth of Angst” features that Shaughnessy shot and the song itself is
as bare as the subject matter.
“Wendy and
I recorded several different versions of this song,” George explains. “But there was something about more production
that seemed to make it slip away from its initial intention.” The version that
made it to the final recording is actually the original voice memo that George sent to Allen. “I still haven’t had a chance to see that installation, I
hope I can someday... soon,” George
says.
Innocence isn’t just for “Sex In Cars” here. Youth… memories of... loss of… is at the core
of this group of songs that, although just a bundle, plays with a moving,
dramatic arc.
“‘1973’ is a song I
wrote for a friend,” George
explains. “She lost a child almost ten years ago and to mark his birthday every
year, I write a song. The songs end up being about him, but also but her and ‘1973’ is really a love song about our
friendship. As for “Brother,” it’s
pretty simple: “I wrote this song for my brother, haha. No one will ever know
you better than your brother can.”
“The Youth
of Angst” is the first in a planned
series of collaborative releases “with a little theme and not the huge pressure
of a full album,” George says about how
she plans to make this long experiment into something more frequent. For this
release “I wanted to write from the perspective of my younger self, but also
with the idea that I could never actually have that perspective again. I
suppose this bundle is nostalgic for a time and feeling that isn’t really
possible to recreate, or only possible to recreate in my imagination.”
Understanding what once was and what will be is
especially important now, in the new reality of 2020.
“I think we are all kind of grappling with this
reality right now. We can only move forward from here. Life won’t be the same
for a while, or maybe ever. But it’s nice to dream about the past while
reimagining the future, and I like the idea of doing these little
collaborations, especially in these times of isolation.”
Inara George’s three-song bundle “The Youth of Angst” arrives on June
5th via Release Me
Records. Inara George is
available for interviews. Contact Josh
Bloom at Fanatic for more
information.
+++
Inara George | Links
+++
Josh Bloom at Fanatic
Promotion | Contact
No comments:
Post a Comment