When is the last time you picked up a brand new album and listened to it from start to finish (and back to the start again), the way it was intended to be heard? Today, you’ll want to do it again, with Jenny Owen Youngs' Transmitter Failure due May 26.
Following fresh in the tracks of her 2007 debut Batten the Hatches (which earned Youngs a record deal with Nettwerk and a song on the popular TV series Weeds, among other highlights), Transmitter Failure begins with a knowing nod to the past – in the ukulele, double bass and jaunty percussion of the 40-second intro, "First Person" – before quickly launching ahead into the album's next track, "Led to the Sea," a powerful rock/pop single aimed in a brand new direction. Jenny pulls off the transition without missing a beat. One listen will have you believing this is the kind of music she's been making all along. As Youngs explains, "The first track is kind of meant as a fakeout. At the same time, it's an excerpt from 'Last Person,' which comes much later in the record. So, backwards and forwards..." It's a theme that creeps up more than occasionally on the album.
For Transmitter Failure, Jenny calls on her long-time producer friend Dan Romer (Batten the Hatches, Ingrid Michaelson, The Woes) to create a lush aural landscape populated by gut-thumping bass lines, electric guitars, sunny keys, booming horns, digital drum tracks and even flute, glockenspiel and a full string section at times (borrowed straight from the pit of award-winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening). Deeply enmeshed in a scene of gifted young indie musicians and songwriters, Jenny and Dan looked to fellow Brooklyners Chris Kuffner (Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, Jim Bianco), Bess Rogers (The Age of Rockets, The Robot Explosion), Meredith Godreau (Gregory and the Hawk), Ben Kalb (New Pornographers, Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson), Saul Simon-MacWilliams (Chris Garneau, The Age of Rockets) and Adam Christgau (Tobias Froberg, The Woes) to collectively contribute bass, guitars, drums, vocals and strings on multiple tracks. "I also wrote with other people for this record," Youngs explains, "Justin Pierre (Motion City Soundtrack) wrote part of the music for 'Secrets.' I worked with Bess Rogers on a couple songs and also called in Osei Essed (The Woes) for a song."
Where Batten the Hatches plays like a beautifully distilled, 40-minute diary entry backed by singular drum tracks, acoustic guitars, banjo, cello and spare digital elements, Transmitter Failure picks up with thicker arrangements and more electric production than fans might be used to, but deliciously malleable vocals, unique instrumentation, and the songwriter's trademark caustic wit remain.
“Here is a Heart” relays aching turns-of-phrase with pretty and sweet vocals over playful keys. “Here is a heart,” she sings, “I made it for you, so take it… you know I live to fill you up / blood of my blood, dripping with love / I bring you the thing you need most / silent between supplies and machines / hang in the corners like a ghost / you know I live to be seen through."
The gritty “Clean Break,” paints a wicked metaphor with reverberating guitars and a touch of haunting vaudeville, mixed with lingering bass and brushed snare. More than just a break-up song, Youngs says, “it’s actually a get away from me, you make me sick and I make myself sick” song.
Jenny clearly delights in never letting the listener tune out, as slow-and-sweet ballads are immediately followed by infectious rock/pop gems. “No More Words” – a nearly seven-minute-long shoegaze odyssey – picks up tempo partway through and fades out with an extended keyboard solo, until… boom! We're hit with the racing, country-fried percussion of “Last Person,” which comes in at track 10 and reminds us how we got to this point, with its winking reference to the first song.
“Nighty-Night” follows effortlessly, as if bringing the evening to a close and carrying with it the promise of a new day. It features Youngs’ lilting doo-wop croon coupled with slow, wailing strings and a waltzing rhythm, reminiscent of a page from Richard Hawley's songbook.
As the title implies, Transmitter Failure hums with the notion of contradiction. Messages of missed/mixed communications are conveyed with a referential look at the past and a fixed eye on the future. Nearly the last song on the album, the title track begins with a sweeping crescendo of strings and drums amid a crash of cymbals, which immediately give way to a few timid, lone tones on a keyboard, followed by Jenny's hushed voice, singing, "There's a lot of words in the English language, but I'm just getting started, baby / we could be here all night." Finally, the sentiment we've been sensing all along is put into words. Jenny explains of the song, "As we were forming the record, it started to become very apparent to me that the thickest thread running through the songs and holding them together was the theme of communication – its success, its complete and total breakdown, and the ways in which it affects relationships. So once I opened my eyes and saw that, using ‘Transmitter Failure’ as a title track made a lot of sense to me." Youngs goes on to say, "This used to be a tiny, pretty, love-y song. Now it is a shape-shifting beast... It was intended as sweet, but most people who hear it assume, I think, that it’s about a relationship ending. It’s actually about a relationship rising from ashes."
There couldn't be a more appropriate note to end (or begin) on than the album's final track, "Start + Stop." With Jenny's words carried by a playful ukulele and her voice alone, it's as if we're back at the bar stool from "Last Person" ("I know you're looking for a stop + start / and I could give you what you want, oh yeah / bring yourself a little closer, baby," she coaxes), while simultaneously setting the stage for "First Person" to start things up again. In the final lines of the song, Youngs unexpectedly switches tone and goes from pleading to promising, with an earnestness and vulnerability in her voice that suggests a weight of her message heavier than the words alone -- "Give me the smallest part of you / I need to know right now / If you're going / I want to go there too / I want to leave with you / I want to go there too / I just want to be with you." We can't help but take her hand and take that chance all over again.
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