Cassandra Jenkins: Abbey Road Amplify x Pitchfork London Sessions

[tranquil music]

We have been over the moon about coming here,

and just the fact that I get to be in London,

recording at Abby Road.

Just the cab ride up to the studio was very surreal,

I just felt like, I'm living in some dream simulation

of my life right now.

And then, once we were actually here in the studio,

it was kind of like a, we just got into it.

I forgot where we were, I was just like,

Okay, we're just, we're making a song.

Where I'm kind in the throws of

doing what's habitual in the studio

and just feeling really comfortable, which is great.

Just got to work.

♪ What were you thinking ♪

♪ When they pulled you over ♪

♪ In the Lincoln ♪

I brought a five-piece band in with me,

to The Gatehouse Studios,

and we've been working with Paul, our engineer.

I'm experimenting with some new songs.

The first one that we tracked,

is one that I just released, called American Spirits.

And that's a song that I wrote a few years ago,

and put down, and kind of just finished again.

♪ I found everything ♪

It just feels really good to be recording new things

and just, I feel really excited to be in this space.

♪ Oh, boy ♪

[tranquil music]

♪ These are things ♪

I'm really lucky, in that, Pitchfork,

reviewed my most recent album,

and I think that of all of the music writing that exists

out there right now,

they just have some of the best writers.

I was meant to do Pitchfork Chicago, as well,

because of COVID, I had to cancel that tour

and it was actually really, really hard for me

but what came out of it was actually that weekend

that I was meant to be playing at the festival

was the same weekend that I pulled this song

American Spirits out from the hard drives,

And I said, You know, maybe I'll finish this.

And what came of it was this song,

and I feel lucky to now be here recording it.

♪ You served out ♪

My writing process is not a very consistent one.

I don't have a set of tricks that I follow

or a reliable muse necessarily,

but a lot of my writing comes in moments of change,

crisis, frustration,

when things are shifting in my life.

I need to have a channel that allows me to express myself

in that moment the way that, as I am.

I feel really lucky that I've had some experience

with the studio at this point.

I've gotten more comfortable in this studio environment,

how to talk about equipment

and walk into a room,

see its strength, see its limitations,

we're in a really small space right now,

so I knew we're not gonna get isolated everything.

So, what do we wanna capture where everything

could be bleeding into the microphones and that's okay?

♪ You could never ♪

♪ Have ♪

♪ Foreseen ♪

Basically, I didn't expect to make a record

that has lots of wah-wah, a fratlist.

And when I sat down at the studio,

I thought I was gonna make an acoustic guitar record,

that was, just sounded like intimate me, acoustic guitar,

but we ended up making something much, much more expansive

and it was totally unexpected,

and that's such a gift to walk in

not knowing what you're going to make

and then walk out with something completely different

from anything you've made before.

I think flexibility is a really big asset

for any kind of [Cassandra giggles]

collaborative work.

I'm here working with an incredible engineer,

an incredible studio, incredible musicians.

I don't wanna be dictating everything,

because I'm losing all of the things that they have to give.

Don't worry about what people think about you.

Don't worry about the final product

make the thing that feels really good to you.

There's nothing that can replace that.

Anything that limits you is your enemy

when you're starting out,

just allow the the beginner's mind

to be your

greatest gift.

[tranquil music]