New York singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins is back with “Only One,” the lead single from her new album My Light, My Destroyer.
Opening with the line “Sea sick dawn,” the track is steeped in synth-pop sadness as Jenkins roams around New York City. Check it out below.
“It’s about a Groundhog Day effect, finding yourself in the same situation over and over again, not knowing how to get out of that loop,” Jenkins said of the track. “And in some sense, an unwillingness to break a cycle because you’re blinded by your circumstances.”
My Light, My Destroyer arrives on July 12 via Jenkins’ new label, Dead Oceans (home to Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, and others). It marks her third record, following the excellent An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. While announcing her new album, Jenkins revealed that Overview was initially intended as a swan song. “I was channeling what I knew in that moment — feeling lost,” she said. “When that record came out, and people started to respond to what I had written, my plans to quit were foiled in the most unexpected, heartening, and generous way. Ready or not, it reinvigorated me.”
She also admitted that My Light had a rocky start. She began working on it after two years of touring in support of Overview, and she didn’t love the result. “I was coming from a place of burn out and depletion, and in the months following the session, I struggled to accept that I didn’t like the record I had just made,” she said. “It felt uninspired, so I started over.”
My Light features collaborations with Palehound’s El Kempner, Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy, Katie Von Schleicher, and more. She’ll celebrate the record’s release with a show at Brooklyn’s Public Records on July 11.
My Light, My Destroyer Track List
1. Devotion
2. Clams Casino
3. Delphinium Blue
4. Shatner’s Theme
5. Aurora, IL
6. Betelgeuse
7. Omakase
8. Music??
9. Petco
10. Attente Téléphonique
11. Tape and Tissue
12. Only One
13. Hayley
