INTERVIEW: Jennifer Wood Heals the Cracks on Upcoming Album

Jennifer Wood has overcome quite a bit to get to this point: her first professionally recorded album. She needs your help on Kickstarter, but in the meantime, we spoke about the project, I'll Be Right Here, Too. Wood tells us how healing from cancer – and its complications – and the deep wounds of gender dysphoria have led her to her upcoming album.

Tell us about how you got to this point with your album.

This project started off as a way to revisit some of the material on The No Spoons Sessions, from a more resourced place, to complete some unfinished thoughts, and to collect the ideas I had when I was too ill to express at that time. But from the beginning, I didn’t want this to be a song-for-song re-do. In part because I wanted to honor that special moment TNSS captures, and a re-do would feel a bit like erasing all of that.

I continue to write new songs (I’m already several songs deep into writing my third album), some of which reflect how I’ve grown musically, spiritually, emotionally, since No Spoons. I’ve gone back and finished or added new verses to songs I’d written years ago – something I was afraid to do for a long time, but have since learned by example can be fantastically liberating.

The old music doesn’t go away – I can sing it any way I feel like singing it, new or old, on a given day. The new album includes three songs – rounds, short choral pieces, instrumented only with voice. These are the ones that have lit my way through the darkest moments, and connect me to joy during the brightest. It’s hard to pick a favorite song on this project, but getting to hear harmonies I’ve only ever
heard in my head, sung by nearly a dozen dear friends... that’s a feeling I wish everyone could have.

We've "known" each other through the Internet for a while now. I know you love boating, and I know you love folk music. How have you been coming back to yourself in your recovery process?

Sailing... oh yes. I love sailing. Sailing is my most comfortable and natural way of meditating – moving my body to draw a line between sky and water.... It doesn’t have to be super bougie, either, it turns out. I have a sturdy little yellow sailboat almost as old as me that I’ve come to trust, and spend as much time on it as I can, in the summer and into autumn. And of course, I have music about it. Two songs on this record.

By “recovery”, you’re asking about cancer, I think, and the complications it’s brought into my life. I’m cancer free (I’ve got a song about that!), which I’m obviously grateful for. I contracted a rare form of encephalitis while I was still immunocompromised from chemo, and that’s been frankly life-changing. It’s left me with what amounts to chronic fatigue – I have to manage my energy closely.

I’m not sure whether it’s the illnesses themselves, or the survival of them, but I’ve come through it all much closer to my art. Beauty is more readily apparent to me. I’m a little less fearful when deciding what to put on the page. Maybe there’s a little more urgency in getting to the truth of what I have to say. One thing I’m noticing lately is that, this translates equally to the written and sung word, and to my newly
emerging painting and drawing practice. I’m more comfortable with art that makes me uncomfortable, and with learning what that discomfort has to teach me.

Why did you feel this was the time to make a professionally recorded album?

The vision I have for this project is way beyond my current recording and engineering skills, and frankly, beyond my equipment. My home studio primarily consists of a TASCAM from 1996, a couple of Sure dynamics (including my treasured Unidyne Mk III), and one mid-range 20 year-old condenser I used on
stage back in my string-band days. I’m singing with a chorus of 5 – 7 other people on some of these songs, a mandolin and a bass player on others, and a half dozen of just voice and guitar. I may track in the tenor or another guitar on some. I’m
even considering adding a tin-whistle on one tune. All while attempting to honor the uncluttered sound of my previous work.

Given my limited energy, it made more sense to spend a little for professional skills, rather than trying to write, produce, and perform this album while learning a new skill set (which itself can take years to master!). So, that meant finding a studio that was willing to work with that vision. I’m happy to have met Jaxon Vesely at the Minneapolis worker-owned Soft Cult Studio, and I think we’re in good hands on that front. A friend pointed me to Rachel Fielding at Resonant Mastering, and I’m kind of excited to see what she can do.

Going back to that third album I mentioned earlier, though, I already have a sense that I’d like to go back to that raw guitar-and-voice folk aesthetic. I hope by then I’ll have learned enough to create it. If not, there’s always the four-track to fall back on.

We need more trans voices in folk music. What do you hope listeners will gain from yours?

A lot of the music on this project comes from the result of healing – physically, yes, but also from the trauma of growing up in near total oppression and denial of my identity as a woman. That’s a lot of cracks to mend, a lot of damage to identify and learn from. I want people to know that it’s possible to heal; that there is a safe, strong, vulnerable, wise, version of ourselves that it is possible for each of us to become.

There are two songs on this record that directly speak to this, and I think I’ll let them speak for themselves. It’s worth noting, though, that one of them, “I’ll Be Right Here, Too” is the title track.

Jennifer Wood – Bandcamp

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