Cassandra Jenkins Holds the Light
Like many, I first heard Cassandra Jenkins while still in the dreary dregs of the pandemic. The world felt blurry and confusing, and little music resonated with me amidst the despair. But out of the daze came a song that felt suited for the moment, “Hard Drive” — a psychedelic blend of field recordings, spoken word and free-improv instrumentation. On it, Jenkins recounts the data she’s storing on her mind’s “Hard Drive” through a winding account of walking through a museum, learning how to drive and conversing about the cosmos.
The song was on Jenkins sophomore album, An Overview of Phenomenal Nature, which, like “Hard Drive,” served as a balm for many. Before its release, Jenkins was resigned to walking away from music. “[That] should never be confused with putting down music, because that is what I live and breathe,” shares Jenkins. “But like any human being, I don’t live and breathe the music industry.” To her own surprise, the world received it with rapturous gratitude and finally this thing — that is, having a (more sustainable) career in music — suddenly became possible. She signed a larger deal with indie label Dead Oceans. “Nobody’s ever given me money and said, ‘Make a thing,’” she shares. And though the increased attention and resources brought Jenkins a sense of “pressure” she had to “work through” she still had the same artist’s spirit that allowed her to produce Overview. Her follow-up, My Light, My Destroyer, continued to merge the metaphysical with the small details of daily life. And like Overview, it was received with gratitude by her growing fanbase.
Space — and what the universe can teach us about our own world — emerged as a guiding light on the new record. On “Aurora, IL,” Jenkins recounts a bout with Covid which left her stuck in the titular small Illinois city. In its second verse, though, she shifts her gaze from herself towards Star Trek actor William Shatner’s trip to space, which was funded by Jeff Bezos’s space venture, Blue Origin. Seeing Earth’s beauty and fragility from above led to Shatner experiencing the “Overview Effect,” which he recalls as, “a sense of the planet’s fragility tak[ing] hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner.” Jenkins was inspired by Shatner’s profound self-described “sadness” and paired her own momentary desolation with his spiritual contention. Reflecting on the “Overview Effect,” led to consider the nature of sanity and spiritual transcendence: “Nirvana and mental collapse look very similar,” she laughs.
In a chat with PAPER in the lead-up to her performance at Pop! Montreal, Jenkins is fittingly thoughtful and freewheeling. Reflecting on her winding career, the cosmos and living as an artist, she is ready to tackle the big and small of life and share the wisdom she’s storing on her hard drive.
You’re home in New York City in the Upper West Side, right? Have you always been in New York City? Did you ever move away, or are you very rooted here?
I’m deeply rooted here. I did go away for college. I was in Philly and Providence for college, and spent a little time abroad as well. But I came right back. New York does that to a lot of people who’ve grown up here. It’s hard to pull the talons off. I feel very drawn to this place.
Your mom factors in on the new record right with her love of space. Is that where that theme comes from in the record?
Yeah, her love of everything. And in that moment I caught her having a moment with the stars.
Was that a new thing for you?
It’s not really new, but I think there’s a real pleasure in rediscovering things that you think you know, and I think that was one of those moments for me where it’s suddenly the thing right under your nose that shows itself to you. I think it’s very similar to when I started birdwatching. Birds have always existed, but suddenly, now that I’m paying attention I can hear the orchestra around me that I was sound-blind to. It’s really fun to kind of pull the veil off of something that has just been there for you all along just by paying attention.
I know that the space stuff lends itself to philosophical terrain. I was really interested in hearing about the “Overview Effect,” and I was just curious where that landed for you as you were making the record.
I have a friend who is a writer, Gideon Jacobs. He was the one that told me about it because he was writing about it. He told me the story about Jeff Bezos sending [the actor] William Shatner to space. I thought he was making it up. But he was like, “No, no, no, that really happened.” He writes a lot about technology and spirituality, and the crossover just seemed too good to be true. When I learned about the overview effect, and I read a lot of astronauts’ accounts of it, it just became really fascinating to me as an idea.
It also was funny to me that my last album, [An Overview of Phenomenal Nature], had the word “overview” as part of the title. There’s a lot of humor embedded in that phrase when it’s used in a certain way. It sounds like it’s from a textbook, or fake academic, almost like Encyclopedia Britannica trying to explain something that is almost impossible to explain.
People that experienced the “Overview Effect” talk about it like they had an LSD trip. They’re coming back trying to explain it to you, and it’s really difficult to put into words. So they end up speaking in certain trappings of LSD speak. The words that come up again and again when you’re reading these accounts from astronauts are about the fragility of the planet, and about our place in the universe as being so fragile. That’s the note that really struck me and showed itself again and again.
Gideon and I have talked about it a lot. We’re working on a play. We’re exploring this question of whether or not everyone should experience the overview effect? Is that something everyone should experience or could experience? It’s kind of like those philosophies around giving all world leaders some kind of psychedelic experience because then maybe we’d find peace on Earth. I wonder if we all need a little bit of that humility and if it would solve some of the world’s problems to just give people that perspective on this place that we’re on. Maybe some things that are happening wouldn’t be so severe.
Did you land on an answer?
A slight spoiler alert, but I think that we realized we could not come up with a happy ending. We sort of landed on this idea that humanity is almost too far gone at this point to recover, but nonetheless, there is still a hopeful element to it. Hopefully, you can be imbued with a microdose of the Overview Effect if you’re exposed to some of the conditions, even though it’s technically impossible to recreate (they’ve tried with VR). But I do like to think of little moments of connecting with nature as like a microdose of the Overview Effect, whether it’s looking at a flower or looking up at the stars with your mom. I think we can all feel a little bit of it if we let ourselves go there.
Yes, it’s about maintaining that presence of mind to feel it.
It’s kind of impossible also to be in that headspace all the time. It’s unsustainable. It’s kind of like your neurons are firing on all cylinders. It also seems like the line between that state that we’re talking about and a mental breakdown is a very fine line. Nirvana and mental collapse look very similar.
I know that Overview was written after a moment of being ready to let music go, and that was one form of release and maybe exhaustion. And now this new record was written after all of this new input and energy from the last record’s success came to you. I was just curious how this new energy shaped your creativity?
I talked about wanting to put down this career path, which should never be confused with putting down music, because that is what I live and breathe. But like any human being, I don’t live and breathe the music industry.
[For this record,] it was an interesting mix of being totally depleted from touring and totally energized by the fact that this new path had been carved out for me. I had no idea what it was, so I really feel like I was blazing a new trail for myself. There was all of the energy that came with that and the discovery there, and making some missteps, and falling into patches that I didn’t know existed. I was encountering new things I was really interested in, and letting that process reveal itself as I went.
I never go into anything with a concept that I need to execute, because my brain gets very bored by that. The minute I’m just executing is the minute I like to abandon something. There has to be this sort of unknown that I’m chasing, and it just reveals itself as I go. This curiosity and the resources with which to explore them is something that I had for the first time ever, which also felt like a certain amount of pressure that I needed to acknowledge and work with and move past. I had never been given an advance. Nobody’s ever given me money, and said, “Make a thing.”
This new path that was laid out for you also seemed to become an opportunity to reflect on other paths from your life, like working at the flower shop, which you reference in “Delphinium Blue.” I’m curious how this new, very intense, exciting path in music made you reconsider those past paths you were on career-wise? I know you’ve had a number of interesting jobs.
I’m continuing to [have additional jobs], as I continue to need to support my art with other work, because it’s not financially rewarding. I think like a lot of artists, it’s very difficult for me to do anything halfway. Even if I’m bagging groceries, I’m putting my entire self into that job. So I have to be very careful about where I choose to put my energy, because I will put it all into that thing. When I’m sweeping my floor, it is my entire self sweeping the floor. That’s just how my brain works and I’ve come to accept that about myself. The idea of phoning in anything is deeply painful. It’s not a state that I feel good in.
I think I looked back on several years of my life because a lot of my life was put on hold, not only when experiencing some of the tragedies that I personally experienced in 2019, but also because of the global tragedies of 2020-2022. And then I was in survival mode when I was on tour. I finally was able to process 2018, a little bit in 2023. Sometimes it takes that long. Our healing trajectory has its own timeline, and it has nothing to do with world events. It has nothing to do with what is convenient for our life and optimizing ourselves. So. [“Delphinium Blue”] finally found its home at a time when I was ready to actually embody it and have some distance from it. I think some songs or some things we’re gonna be writing about our entire lives.
You worked at the New Yorker as well? It makes sense to me, because your writing is so detailed and diaristic; it’s maybe journalistic in that way.
I was actually in the visuals department. I was in the photo department. But of course I was interfacing with all of that incredible writing and the incredible writers. Meeting people like Alex Ross, for example, who is just such a hero in a lot of ways, and then was so nice to me as like a 23 year old, scared little assistant: those 2 years of my life were incredibly formative. That being my 1st job out of college was absolutely surreal, and I was absolutely underqualified. I continue the friendships that I made there still.
I wanted to work in publishing. I worked on the “Goings On About Town” when I was there, and like that was my dream, like I love knowing what was going on in New York, and getting to talk to the photographers who were going out there. But I kind of had this sense like, oh, no, I’m on the wrong side. I think I want to be out there being a mess in the world, and not in this high rise writing about it. I had a real reckoning, and it was hard, because I felt like I had found myself in the best place, and I wasn’t happy there, and I was just like, “Oh no! My plan. It’s not working, even though it should be.” I felt my hunger was elsewhere. And it really helped me along my path to be like this is really hard to give up, and I still want to give it up. So I must really want to do this other thing.
Photography: Wyndham Garnett
Like many, I first heard Cassandra Jenkins while still in the dreary dregs of the pandemic. The world felt blurry and confusing, and little music resonated with me amidst the despair. But out of the daze came a song that felt suited for the moment, “Hard Drive” — a psychedelic blend of field recordings, spoken…