Singer/songwriter Jillian Jacqueline finds her manner again to herself on the stunningly stunning ‘MotherDaughterSisterWife,’ a cathartic exhale that sees her absolutely realizing her imaginative and prescient and finally creating the document she’s at all times dreamed of constructing.
Stream: ‘MotherDaughterSisterWife’ – Jillian Jacqueline
“This is the album that I’ve at all times wished to make, however by no means thought that I might make,” Jillian Jacqueline tells me one September afternoon.
It’s a strong, emotionally charged assertion – and one which’s a very long time coming for the singer/songwriter. Jacqueline has been making music since she was 12 years outdated, when Kenny Rogers signed her to his personal label after listening to her singing in espresso retailers in New York Metropolis. Jacqueline has had many musical lives since. Forming the band Little Girls Band together with her three sisters, shifting to Nashville to develop into a songwriter, launching her solo profession with Massive Loud, and at last turning into an impartial artist together with her debut document Truthfully in 2022.
This previous Friday, October 17, Jacqueline launched her eagerly anticipated sophomore album, MotherDaughterSisterWife (through Virgin Music Group). “This document simply seems like the within of my coronary heart, my mind and my soul in music kind,” she informed me once we spoke in September. If you already know Jacqueline’s discography, then once you hear the brand new document, you’ll perceive what she means. MotherDaughterSisterWife is 100% Jacqueline. The songwriting, the preparations, the vocal manufacturing and the music are intertwined fully with Jacqueline the particular person.
Produced by Ian Walsh, Andy Skib, and Jacqueline’s husband, Bryan Brown, MotherDaughterSisterWife is an immersive expertise. On one hand, you are feeling like Alice getting misplaced in your individual Wonderland, however on the opposite, there are some very darkish themes to grapple with – melancholy, melancholy, self-worth, motherhood, creativity, being a lady on this present interval, heartbreak and abusive relationships.
You throw round your emotions
And I dodge them like grenades
You make the room so heavy
And count on me to not break
And I do know that it’s not your fault
I do know that it’s not your fault
So that you might be the bull
However I received’t be your china store
– “China Store,” Jillian Jacqueline
The songs “China Store” and “Extra” discover the darker realms of romantic relationships. With every track, the narrator grows in self-love and energy, who finally shakes off the shackles of both having to tip-toe spherical another person’s emotional outbursts, within the case of “China Store,” or on “Extra” the place the character has stayed far too lengthy in an unloving and emotionally abusive relationship as a result of they didn’t know they may need extra. An emotion we’ve got all needed to confront.
Or possibly there’s a superb clarification
For why you watched me cry within the bathe
And the way you at all times knew to show over in mattress
Proper once I was about to maneuver nearer
Individuals say hey, why did you keep
If it was so unhealthy you actually didn’t should
However I didn’t know I might need extra
I didn’t know I might have extra
– “Extra,” Jillian Jacqueline
Jacqueline spoke about “virtually reverting again to childhood optimism” on this album, which you hear actually clearly on “Cult Traditional,” an ode to the romances of basic Hollywood movies. Jacqueline has even included a snippet from the movie ‘Penny Serenade’ starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. The track feels cozy and heat, like watching an outdated movie on a crisp autumn night. The optimism and magic are palpable with the tender instrumentation and Jacqueline’s silky clean vocals.
Generally it will probably really feel like
Wanna hit the rewind
Forgetting learn how to romance
Grocery store gradual dance
You and I are a cult basic
Kinda die exhausting cinematic
Preserve you coming again by the static
Responsible pleasure within the attic
– “Cult Traditional,” Jillian Jacqueline
The lyricism on MotherDaughterSisterWife is exact in its execution but dreamy in the way it makes you are feeling once you shut your eyes. “Stroke Of Genius” sees Jacqueline chasing a muse even when she proves to be inconsistent and harmful. The quickening of the strings and Jacqueline’s vocals create a spot the place you may disappear into the track.
Working down the halls of my thoughts
Scissors in my hand looking for
One thing left to say that’s worthy of my tongue
Solitary combat with a canvas
Solo flight trying to land it
Married to a muse I can’t stand however
She’s all I ever need
The title observe “MotherDaughterSisterWife” is the centerpiece of this document that pulls the opposite songs in. With out the title track, you wouldn’t have “Fantasy Lady” or “Extra” and even “Eyelashes.” “MotherDaughterSisterWife” is the place all of it started. In Jacqueline’s personal phrases, “I believe it’s so extremely unsettling once you begin to have a look at what all these labels make you are feeling and the way you’re supposed to maneuver into these labels.”
As a lady, these labels are thrust upon us and we’re anticipated to know instinctively what is predicted of us, and if we don’t, we’re “unhealthy moms, daughters, sisters, or wives.”
How I’m seen on this world is in relation to which label I occupy at anyone time. I’m by no means Emily. Jacqueline is rarely simply Jillian. Our identification is at all times wound as much as how we might be of service to others. Jacqueline says this quiet half out loud. Listening and mouthing the lyrics typically seems like a catharsis of kinds, an exhale after being submerged below the burden of expectations for too lengthy.
A fish out of water
The third of 4 daughters
Once I grew to become a mom
I nonetheless felt like a woman
From nowhere Pennsylvania
Straight into the vein of
The silent expectations
That I ought to maintain the world
Once I interview an artist, there’s at all times a component of the unknown. How receptive will they be, how snug can I make them, will they be open to my questions. Once I met Jacqueline on an early September balmy afternoon in her dwelling in Nashville, I instantly felt like I’d met a long-lost buddy. We spoke for over an hour about her sophomore album, creativity, self-worth, love and what we might inform our youthful selves. The next interview has been refined for size and readability. Learn our intimate dialog beneath, and stream MotherDaughterSisterWife, out now!
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:: stream/buy MotherDaughterSisterWife right here ::
:: join with Jillian Jacqueline right here ::
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A CONVERSATION WITH JILLIAN JACQUELINE
Atwood Journal: Firstly, thanks for agreeing to talk to Atwood Journal about your new document. It’s an honour. Listening to MotherDaughterSisterWife the overarching theme is what it means to be a woman and a lady. You additionally grapple with darkish themes – melancholy, self-worth, motherhood, being a lady on this present interval, heartbreak and abusive relationships. How did this properly of inspiration develop into the album?
Jillian Jacqueline: This document got here from a really intense interval of development. MotherDaughterSisterWife is the document I’ve at all times wished to make, however by no means thought I might make. This document is kind of this reckoning of just like the loss of life of self, the self that I assumed I had constructed. For the primary 30 years of my life, I used to be projecting this model of me of who I used to be going to be to the world. I believe lots of people undergo this of their late 20s into their early 30s, the place you could have this bizarre sort of shift, ‘whoa, am I nonetheless that particular person or am I alleged to be doing one thing completely different?’ I had numerous private {and professional} issues that culminated on the identical time. My final document, Truthfully, I used to be actually in the midst of all of that. I couldn’t fairly even course of what was occurring. I used to be making an attempt to create a bridge from my youthful self to the place I used to be on the time, however actually I felt like my eyes have been nonetheless closed just a little bit.
I used to be really going to say this album sounds essentially the most such as you. It’s not a departure out of your earlier discography by way of sound however rather more you, in a soulful sort of manner.
Jillian Jacqueline: It seems like an exhale. It simply feels, actually, just like the nine-year outdated me assembly the 36-year-old me and being, “oh, did we discover one another once more?” It simply seems like the within of my coronary heart and my mind and my soul in music kind. This document was my quiet, peaceable nook of creativity. It’s so me, it’s so private. It was very cathartic and intimate, so in that manner, even placing it out into the world feels completely different from any document I’ve ever launched.
As I’ve been going again and listening to the document, I can see little touch-points to your different information, however I stored considering, ‘this seems like Jacqueline.’ From what I do know of you, clearly, by what I’ve learn or watched or listened to. I felt like your final document Truthfully, felt such as you however you possibly hitting the correct markers you have been informed to hit?
Jillian Jacqueline: Completely. I like what you stated in regards to the theme of womanhood earlier. Motherhood notably sort of threw me into reassessing my relationship with my physique. I believe I ignored my nervous system and my feminine anatomy and the way all of that’s tied into your nervous system. While you get pregnant and have a child, you simply don’t function the identical manner anymore. It was the primary time I actually needed to get in tune with my physique and take note of what my physique was telling me and why I used to be feeling a sure manner at a sure time. I felt it introduced me this deeper knowledge of how every thing is synergetic and tied into one another. In case you don’t take note of that, that’s once you get anxiousness and melancholy, all this stuff I’ve struggled with for a really very long time as a result of I believe I simply suppressed numerous what my physique was making an attempt to inform me.
This document is such an embrace of my womanhood in a way of, you might be all of your self now and also you don’t should neglect components of your self to outlive, which, “Shiny Eyed Child” touches on. I went into the music business very trusting and considering individuals would maintain me and other people would say issues about how they have been going to do X for my profession or what they believed about me. I actually used these as pillars of my very own self-worth. I didn’t spend money on ‘what do I consider about myself’ So when somebody’s you as you probably have all of the solutions and also you’re sturdy and also you’re assured, and also you’re not that for your self, how are you going to be that for anyone else? It was all this stuff compounding and hitting me directly. This document to me is, like I stated, a reckoning.
It virtually seems like a delicate awakening too. I don’t really feel like I’ve stepped into ‘I’m a lady hear me roar.’ Possibly that’s like the following document. I believe I’m like determining that I don’t need to be the particular person I used to be anymore and I need to be anyone new, and I don’t actually know who she is but, however I’m actually excited to satisfy her.
When did you begin writing for the document? Do you keep in mind what the primary track was?
Jillian Jacqueline: I technically began writing for what would develop into the document within the Fall of 2023. “Shiny Eyed Child” was the track I wrote that felt just like the catapult second into the mindset of making the album, in September 2023. Nonetheless, there are songs from way back to 2021 on the document as properly, like “Extra.”
I believe I’m a few years older than you and I do really feel like I’ve reached a sure level in my life the place I’ve began to face up a bit straighter. I can hear that within the songwriting and the vocals on this document. There’s a quiet confidence there that I don’t hear in your earlier information.
Jillian Jacqueline: It’s really bizarre you say what you stated, as a result of yesterday I used to be excited about what would I say to my 29 yr outdated self? Or what would I say to my 19 yr outdated self?
I wasn’t essentially taught or modelled what confidence seemed like in myself. I don’t suppose my mother and father knew they have been doing this, but it surely was very very similar to, in the event you do this stuff, individuals will love you. All of us, I believe, come to this consciousness as we become older, we begin going to remedy and excited about our childhoods and our mother and father. We’re like, ‘oh, yeah, that was an fascinating solution to do it,’ you already know? I’m getting extra conscious and assured of who I need to be on this planet, however on no account do I’ve the solutions but. I believe with that curiosity and that lifelong studying, I’m virtually reverting again to love childhood optimism. There’s undoubtedly numerous uncomfortable messiness too, the place I’m like, ‘oh man, I actually thought I had it discovered and I had nothing discovered.’
Can you share what the recording course of seemed like?
Jillian Jacqueline: The recording course of for this document was very completely different from every other document I’ve made. As a result of my producer lived in LA once we began working collectively, we did numerous correspondence over the cellphone/ face-time/ work tapes/ voice memos, the place we constructed the sonic references for the album. I shared songs and musical influences, and he would take these references and mock up these tough concepts of every observe that we might then hash out and construct piece by piece collectively.
Hiring our gamers who did numerous these periods remotely gave the document this kind of puzzle piece feeling, however I beloved how deliberate every selection was as a result of we took numerous time speaking about what we have been doing.
I made a visit out to LA in March of 2024 and that was then we began monitoring vocals on the primary 3 songs at my brother-in-law’s, Tofer Brown’s, dwelling studio. We paid numerous consideration to which microphones we have been utilizing as I used to be actually wanting to listen to my voice in a extra intimate and uncooked seize than I had on earlier albums. We used an AEA R44 ribbon mic on numerous the document which has heat and depth I actually beloved on my voice. We additionally closely used cello, fiddle, upright bass and mandolin on numerous these songs which is instrumentation I hadn’t beforehand explored in my music.
I wished the mattress of this document to really feel acquainted but cinematic. A lot of this music seems like one thing I’ve been listening to in my head for a few years and at last gave concrete form to it.
The title of the album is ‘MotherDaughterSisterWife’ (mom, daughter, sister, spouse); there is no areas between every phrase. I do know that will not be misplaced on numerous girls and ladies as a result of these are the descriptors which are given to us, or imposed on us, relying on the way you need to see it.
Jillian Jacqueline: I believe it’s so extremely unsettling too once you begin to have a look at what all these labels make you are feeling and the way you’re supposed to maneuver into these labels. Girls are born with disgrace of their veins. The track “Fantasy Lady” touches on numerous these themes. I can admit that once I received married a lot of the way in which I operated in my relationship was like just a little child. It wasn’t like a lady who was certain of herself and certain of what she deserved. It was very a lot, ‘do you want me? Do you continue to like me now? Am I okay now?’
I used to be like working out of those very stunted emotional capacities and also you realise like, okay, I’m an grownup now and if that is going to be a wholesome, long-term relationship, I have to personal my very own flaws, my very own errors. I have to cease working.
It’s such an inside wiring concern, after which there’s additionally very unhealthy companions who reap the benefits of that insecurity, which is what the track “Extra” is about. “Extra” is, was, actually the ultimate nail within the coffin of closure for me with this very, very damaging relationship that I needed to work years to essentially uncover the darkness of it of why this particular person made me really feel like I used to be so disposable, so unworthy of their love.
Sound sensible, the document is admittedly textured. It feels very ethereal and dreamy and nostalgic, but additionally darkish and scary at occasions. For some cause, once I was listening to the title observe, “MotherDaughterSisterWife,” it felt like I used to be listening to it underwater. Not that your music has ever been like one sort of style, however the entire document feels such as you have been pushing the style.
Jillian Jacqueline: Wow. I like that you just felt that. This document is what I’ve desired and heard in my head musically for myself endlessly. This document is really like the within of my head, into music kind. My producer Ian Walsh and my husband, Bryan Brown, helped me make my imaginative and prescient a actuality. They have been really like… we have been in a submarine. I like the underwater scene. We have been all in a submarine, and we have been driving it collectively, however I used to be the one determining the place we have been going to go.
I felt very free to do this as a result of my label Virgin is the one distribution. They’re not concerned in something inventive. I don’t actually have a supervisor proper now. I don’t have anyone telling me what the objectives are to hit or what we’re making an attempt to do. I didn’t even ask for suggestions. Even my finest pals have been asking if they may hear the brand new music, and I stated no. As a result of I simply didn’t need any voices in my head. I solely wished to personal.
And so every thing, “MotherDaughterSisterWife,” “Cherry Blossom,” these have been the songs that once I sat down with my guitar and everyone, had gone away and I felt very alone and I felt like, ‘okay, I’d by no means make one other document.’ I might simply sit on this room in my home and I might simply be like, ‘what’s popping out? What do I hear that I need to say?’
I hadn’t written alone in years, and I completed “Fantasy Lady” on my own and I used to be like, ‘oh, there I’m. Okay, this seems like me.’ I lastly discovered the sound that I’ve at all times been listening to in my head and couldn’t fairly determine learn how to make it work. This has been a very long time coming for me due to every thing I like musically that I’ve listened to my entire life and all of the information that basically impressed me whereas I used to be making this document, I simply really feel prefer it all culminated into what this document appears like.
I really feel like with this document, there is a particular story line all through. While you get to the final observe, “Gravity” which lyrically I believe could be very, very cool and sonically like a dirge, after which it sort of turns off with the strings. It is like a fast swap and you then return round to trace one, I believe that is actually cool.
Jillian Jacqueline: Thanks a lot. I like that you just seen that. We haven’t even actually talked about this, however my voice, I really feel like my voice modified with having a child and so lots of my artist pals which have had youngsters, we’ve all talked about this. My voice is deeper and my breath management is completely different and numerous the melodies that I used to be writing after I had my son, I used to be exploring with my head voice extra and simply doing softer issues as a result of I might inform my physique wished to sort of do this extra. My voice didn’t need to push as a lot and pressure notes.
I spoke to Christina Perri, I believe you each have an identical greater vocal vary, and he or she stated till she made her final document, nobody had ever produced or engineered her voice proper till she labored with a lady producer and engineer.
Jillian Jacqueline: Oh wow. How wonderful is that? Any person having the instinct to know learn how to make you are feeling protected in that and draw you out in that. I believe that’s wonderful. I’ve really by no means labored with a feminine vocal producer or producer in any respect, however I’ve to say the 2 males that I did work with on this document are delicate souls and really creative.
How has turning into a mom affected your artwork?
Jillian Jacqueline: It’s actually fascinating how motherhood tells its personal story by the way in which that you’ll be able to talk after the actual fact. You’re by no means the identical. I used to be simply speaking about this with the artist and songwriter Luci Silvas as we placed on the MOTHER present, and he or she’s actually struggled after having her twins together with her vocal chords. There’s little or no medical understanding of how carrying a baby impacts your vocal chords. By my very own analysis, I’ve discovered that your vocal chords are immediately tied to your pelvic flooring, so when you could have a child, all of that adjustments.
I need to begin advocating for this too, as a result of with the MOTHER present, we’re making an attempt to make clear the dearth of sources for artists who’re moms. But additionally, when your livelihood will get immediately affected and also you don’t know the place to show to get solutions, that may be actually scary and debilitating. Your financial price is tied as much as your voice, actually.
Then there’s additionally how your price is considered by the business. You begin to really feel the business slowly backing away from you since you’re not a workhorse anymore and you’ll’t get on the market and bounce within the van and play a present six hours away for 500 bucks. I need to discover methods for all of us to nonetheless be capable to present up in no matter capability that we’ve got to share our music and make our artwork.
As a result of that’s part of us that might die. That makes me so indignant. I’ve had so many younger artists who’ve reached out to me which are newly pregnant or simply had their child, and so they’re terrified they may lose all of it.
How do you are taking a really distinctive expertise, that can be very common however make it particular to you and your listener, with out watering it down or dropping the track’s essence to wanting it carry out properly for radio or streaming?
Jillian Jacqueline: In case you cease writing songs only for that feeling of expression, you’ll lose your instinct as a author of what really strikes you. I simply misplaced my voice for a very long time in that concern. I might sit down to jot down songs and all I might take into consideration was, ‘are they going to love that? Is that going to imply one thing to them?’ It was similar to I misplaced the plot on why I even began writing songs, so “Stroke of Genius” was like my return to that instinct, the author’s voice inside me.
A buddy of mine who’s one other artist, she stated a number of months in the past once we have been speaking and he or she stated, “you already know, we’ve got to recollect artists are like blue-collar employees. We’re seeing the 1% which are on the award reveals, however most of us, traditionally, the artists enjoying the present on the bar or on the venue, they’re not within the tour bus. They have been doing blue- collar work.” You get into this since you felt compelled to show your experiences into music and write lyrics.
I believe that when you may see how a lot a track is streamed or what number of listeners individuals have, it creates a body of reference moving into that basically negatively impacts the artists themselves as a result of I don’t have to know the way many individuals have listened to the track earlier than I hear it. I simply need to hear the track.
I used to be considering, given the political backdrop of what is going on on in your nation, I really feel prefer it’s such a strong factor that you just’re all standing there and asking why there isn’t help for moms who make music? Why is not there the help to allow them to provide artwork?
Jillian Jacqueline: In truth, one of many largest issues that everyone knows is, intercourse sells, proper? Like, particularly for feminine artists, particularly in nation music, there’s nonetheless this undercurrent of in case you are not bodily interesting to a person or to anybody, in the event you’re not sexually by-product indirectly, you’re not in all probability going to get on these greater phases and get the radio play. When you could have a child and develop into a mother, it’s the most unsexy factor you can presumably do, in line with the business. I do suppose there’s an enormous hole within the system the place that model of a lady will get to exist. Being a mom is a really badass, highly effective factor to be.
You stated there’s 4 extra songs coming in some unspecified time in the future, probably on a deluxe model of the document, are you able to go into element about that but?
Jillian Jacqueline: Not but! I’ll share extra quickly…
What do you hope listeners, notably girls and ladies, take away from this album?
Jillian Jacqueline: Oh, properly… one of many issues I’ve begun to grasp is that the older I get, the extra I’m not afraid to confess what I don’t know. I believe knowledge comes from staying curious… so I hope that anybody that listens to this, particularly girls and ladies, will discover solace in the truth that my very own development isn’t linear…it’s messy, fragmented, and doesn’t at all times appear to be development.
These songs really feel like I lastly let the little woman in me throw paint on the wall in no matter manner she wished. So there’s a freedom in letting go of who you’ve been informed you might be, and embracing who you actually need to be.
The roles we step into as girls include numerous preconceived notions, social expectations, pressures, and poisonous messages. We now have to search out our personal definitions of what these roles imply and the way we will really thrive in these areas. That’s what numerous my journey with motherhood and artistry has helped me to outline, and this document displays numerous the nuances of these private experiences.
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