New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Jenny Owen Youngs releases her second single "Knife Went In" from her forthcoming highly-anticipated fourth studio album Avalanche, set for release
September 22 on Yep Roc Records, her first full length body of work in over a decade.
"Knife Went In" is an exploration of vulnerability in early stages of relationships and finding common ground in shared wounds, with Youngs' gentle voice gliding smoothly over looping nylon-stringed guitar.
Says Youngs about the track, "There's nothing quite like the feeling of meeting someone and discovering that their scars match your own, so to speak; this can create the opportunity for accelerated intimacy. This song is concerned with reveling in that closeness."
"Knife Went In" was accompanied by a performance video featuring album collaborator
Peter Silberman of the Brooklyn indie rock group The Antlers. The track and video premiered with FLOOD Magazine who stated, "The contemplative folk-rock track is buoyed by Youngs' intoxicating melodic line and imagistic lyrics…Equally parts lovestruck and skeptical, the song is an examination of the grace one can feel when in the midst of an accelerated romance."
The song, co-written with Tyler Demorest and longtime Youngs collaborator Bess Rogers, was developed and perfected with producer Josh Kaufman - composer, engineer, and producer known for his work with The National, The
Hold Steady and his project Bonny Light Horseman - alongside
Anais Mitchell and Fruit Bats' Eric Johnson.
As Kaufman and Youngs were working in a studio in Kingston called Isokon, which belongs to D
James Goodwin who engineered, mixed, and mastered the record, Kaufman created a drum loop that became the first layer of the song. Over the drum loop, Jenny played her nylon-string guitar.
As Youngs describes, "those became two of the recurring elements that helped form the sonic palette of the album. I also tracked my guitars and vocals at the same time on almost the entire album, which was something Josh suggested and something I'd never really done. I think the album breathes in a really lovely way because of that."
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.
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.
