Album Cover - Photo Credit: Josh Goleman Avalanche as a body of work is filled with glimmers and glimpses of devastation and darkness giving way to light and love. “There’s a good deal of heartbreak and disappointment in this music,” Youngs explains, “but it ultimately gives way to excitement and promise, to the incredible, immeasurable bliss of falling in love and finding yourself again. These songs travel the whole emotional spectrum.” Written with a series of friends including S. Carey, Madi Diaz, The Antlers’ Peter Silberman, Christian Lee Hutson, featuring drumming from The Walkmen’s Matt Barrick and recorded with producer Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, The Hold Steady, Cassandra Jenkins, Josh Ritter), the collection is an achingly beautiful exploration of loss, resilience, and growth from an artist who’s experienced more than her fair share of each in recent years. The songs are deceptively serene here, layering Youngs’ infectious pop sensibilities atop lush, dreamy arrangements that often belie the swift emotional currents lurking underneath. The result is the most raw and arresting release of Youngs’ remarkable career, a brutally honest, deeply vulnerable work of self-reflection that learns to make peace with the past as it transforms doubt and grief into hope and transcendence. That kind of range has been Youngs’ calling card from the very start. Born and raised in rural New Jersey, she fell in love with The Beatles at an early age before eventually finding her way to The Cranberries and Elliott Smith in high school. Her self-released debut, Batten The Hatches, landed a high-profile sync in the Showtime series Weeds and led to a deal with Nettwerk Records, which re-released the album along with her 2009 follow-up, Transmitter Failure. Widespread acclaim and dates with the likes of Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, Frank Turner, and Aimee Mann followed, but by the time Youngs released her third album, 2012’s An Unwavering Band Of Light, she was ready for a change of pace, moving to LA to focus on writing for other artists and for film and TV. In 2016, Youngs co-wrote Pitbull’s “Bad Man,” which debuted at the 58th annual Grammy Awards; in 2017, she co-wrote Shungudzo’s “Come On Back,” which was featured in the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack; and in 2018, she co-wrote Panic! At The Disco’s smash hit “High Hopes,” which is now seven-times platinum and broke the record for most weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart. Along the way, Youngs also launched Buffering The Vampire Slayer, an episode-by-episode podcast devoted to Buffy The Vampire Slayer that attracted more than 160,000 monthly listeners and led to a book deal with St. Martin’s Press. Youngs recently launched a new series with her podcasting partner/ex-wife called The eX-Files and has a narrative fiction podcast due out next year, as well. More on Jenny Owen Youngs: Website | Instagram US TOUR DATES 2023 9/19 - 9/23 Americanafest Nashville, TN 10/12 - Baby’s All Right - Brooklyn, NY 10/13 - Miracle Theatre - Washington, D.C. 10/14 - Johnny Brenda's - Philadelphia, PA 10/19 - SPACE - Evanston, IL 11/15 - Moroccan Lounge - Los Angeles, CA 11/16 - Cafe Du Nord - San Francisco, CA 11/17 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR 11/18 - Fremont Abbey - Seattle, WA 3/1 - 3/ 8 Cayamo Cruise |
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