Jill Sobule acknowledges that the practically decade-long hole between albums was on account of procrastination.
“I went by means of an prolonged time period of discovering different issues and avoiding doing a brand new album,” says Sobule, whose new Nostalgia Kills comes out Sept. 14, with the monitor “I Don’t Wanna Wake Up” premiering solely under. “There had been issues that occurred in my life — the demise of a mum or dad, a breakup, a transfer. I used to be my very own procrastinatrix, is what I name it. But I feel these type of jostle you again into the inventive mode, and I began loving music once more — loving listening, loving writing and the unique spirit of why I did this within the first place, I suppose.
“It’s such as you get hit within the head and one thing occurs — but it surely’s a superb concussion.”
Sobule — who got here to prominence with “I Kissed a Girl” again in 1995 — hasn’t been completely idle since 2009’s California Years. While amassing greater than 100 songs, she’s additionally labored on stage musical corresponding to Prozak and the Platypus and the in-progress one-woman present #Fuck7thGrade, which can use a few of Nostalgia Kills‘ songs, in addition to the Jill and Julia evaluation with actress Julia Sweeney. The previous couple of years, nevertheless, started yielding materials that steered Sobule again into the studio for an album of her personal.
“I had no label saying, ‘We have to get this out immediately!’ or something like that, which was a blessing and curse,” Sobule notes. Nostalgia Kills was produced by her good pal and fellow artist Ben Lee, recorded at his dwelling studio in Los Angeles with friends corresponding to X’s John Doe, the MC5’s Wayne Kramer, Richard Barone of the Bongos, That Dog’s Petra Haden and Jellyfish alumnus Roger Joseph Manning Jr. Noting the album’s vast stylistic sweep, Sobule says that “it feels prefer it’s a e-book of brief tales which have related emotions to them. It has a story. It’s a glance again and my life and really biographical, however on the similar time the title monitor says all of it — Nostalgia kills. You’ve bought to maintain shifting or die. Let’s watch it at the moment, however put it away.” And actually songs, together with the spare, vibey “I Don’t Wanna Wake Up,” are “truly a glance ahead” — with some hallucinatory help — for Sobule.
“That was written after a breakup,” Sobule remembers. “I used to be simply firstly of writing slightly brief story, so I had no music for it — possibly the primary verse. It was the night time a pal gave me some mushrooms, so I used to be microdosing and I used to be additionally studying — I feel it might need been Karen Armstrong’s A History of God. That’s why there are plenty of Biblical references, Old Testament references. It’s laborious to translate the precise which means of that tune; Some of them are extra direct storytelling, however this one’s slightly trippy. And I had some unusual program on my iPad the place one of many settings was referred to as Krautrock, and I messed with that and located this little drumbeat that we used. It’s bought that blend of natural and inorganic.”
Sobule hits the street to start out hawking Nostalgia Kills on Sept. 13 in Woodstock. N.Y., and has sporadic reveals booked into December. #Fuck7thGrade, in the meantime, is because of workshop on the Pittsburgh City Theater throughout November. “I like performing, and I like telling the tales of the songs,” Sobule says. “It feels good placing one thing new out once more. It actually has been too lengthy.”
