"This album of 40 minutes is absolutely perfect, a bedside album so pleasant to listen to after a hard day. At once accessible and challenging . . . a perfectly balanced album . . . filled with memorable melodies. A debut full of promise!" -Sabine de Greef, With Music in My Mind
"Debut albums sometimes can offer a false look at what's to come in the future from an artist, but for Jenny Gillespie it was just the opposite. She spent time to find herself musically before presenting this album to the public. This is a great album that offers a tranquil, relaxed quality to it that I think everyone can use at some point or another and is well worth a spin." -Guestlist
Jenny Gillespie continues to weave and bloom her dreamy folk-pop songs on her new album Light Year. Tender, womanly vocals soar and sparkle over these songs that blend rootsy sweetness with darker rock atmospheres.
Fans of Feist, Laura Marling, Martha Wainwright, and Sun Kil Moon will gravitate to this album, instrumented thoughtfully by world percussion, pedal steel, accordian, and more, but with the insistent thread of Jenny's inventively tuned guitar, piano, and a broken-angelic voice that heightens and speaks unabashedly to the listener's emotions.
In Jenny's own words:
"LIGHT YEAR is the culmination of a year's worth of shedding layers both musical and personal. It was recorded here in Chicago at Electrical Audio by Greg Norman, and Carterco Recording by Jamie Carter, with additional production and mixing by Darwin Smith at Cacophony Recorders in Austin, TX. I wrote most of the songs over my first four years here in Chicago, 2004-2008. Musically I wanted to move into a new direction, as I'd been filling myself with so much music that moved me, new sources of inspiration I wanted reflected in my own work. I wasn't quite sure initially how to focus the album, and over the course of the year in making it, cut several songs from the lineup that seemed too steeped in my straightforward folky sound, drawn to those that appealed to me on a deeper level musically and lyrically. It was arduous at first picking up the electric guitar and piano, both of which I was a little afraid of, but these instruments helped me expand the arrangements into more nuanced versions. I was blessed by meeting Darwin Smith through a friend; he stretched each song's potential in the mixing process into earthy and ambient spaces that brought out the emotional spectrum in each piece.
I would say the album's overarching theme is the shedding of darkness to reveal one's light, and the holding close of those dark parts of yourself that remain integral to your being, not in attachment but in compassion, in possibilities towards transformation. The music itself is a blend of light, sweet, tender vocals and tender melodies, with darker ambiences and rougher textures, more difficult visions and more womanly vocalizations. Musicians who played on the album include John Knecht, Josh Stewart, Adam Ollendorff (Madi Diaz, Cracklin' Moth) Lee Simmons, Alan Scalpone (The Bitter Tears,) and Darwin Smith. My boyfriend Andrew Mason joined in on one song, 'Littleblood,' playing his accordian, and that really adds a sweetness to the song. Josh's lovely fiance Jenny Lee played violin on 'Vanishing Point," and the string arrangement Josh wrote lifts the piece to a gorgeous zenith of sound. Everyone who worked were gracious, curious about the work that was unfolding, full of energy and presence, endowed with a sense of humor and the ability to calm and center me throughout the recording process, and more than I could have ever hoped for in a collaborative team. The physical CD itself includes some gorgeous art by the French painter, Claire Degans and evocative line drawings by my good friend Hannah Kim, a Chicago artist."
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