Karen and the Sorrows -- Why Do We Want What We Want?

This review is also cross-posted on our sister site, Adobe & Teardrops.

Karen and the Sorrows pulled a Beyonce and dropped her latest EP, Why Do We Want What We Want? this morning. Before we get into the EP, though, it’s safe to say that Karen has changed my life for the better and, if you’re reading this, she has for you, too — even if you don’t know it. Karen is the long-time organizer of New York City’s Gay Ole Opry and Queer Country Monthly concerts. Many of your favorite queer country artists spent the 2010s performing at these shows, finding tour buddies, cowriting, and, of course, built friendships. Hell — Amythyst Kiah’s first show in New York City was at Queer Country Monthly. The queer country community we have today was built in large part due to Karen’s efforts.

But with COVID ranging and, in Karen’s words, an immune system that “don’t work right,” Karen has had to leave her lifelong home of New York City. She recorded the album in isolation, sending her home recordings down to Brooklyn and listening in on the other artists’ recording sessions via Zoom. Darkness has always kind of been Karen’s thing — though my wife and I did dance to “Star” at our wedding and when she proposed to me — but the heartbreak here is genuine. There’s no “back to normal” for Karen — no touring, no performances. And with the world’s cavalier approach to a pandemic that has not ended, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

So listen to this with your whole heart, because that’s how Karen made it.

Musically, Why Do We Want What We Want? leans towards acoustic instrumentation, a raw sound a step removed from Karen and the Sorrows’ customary reliance on steel guitar. The relatively bare bones sound recalls the band’s first EP, Ocean-Born Mary, a gothic queer country ghost story of jealousy and vengeance.

Here, though, is Karen at her most raw, dwelling on the shattered promises of a broken love and the wry acknowledgment that she’s had just a little too much time to dwell on it. “Why Do We Want What We Want?” channels Jewish liturgical music, the mournful repetition inviting us to empathize with others as we consider the pain in our own lives.

“People Love You the Way They Love You” is a punch to the gut, some clear-eyed advice for the broken-hearted when their lovers simply fall short of what is needed.

The EP closes with “Kol Nidre,” a reference to the concluding service of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement (which is coming up this Monday.) During this time, congregants pray to be pardoned for the sins of the previous year and mourn the dead. Just as congregants acknowledge that they will almost certainly commit the same sins in the coming year, they pray for compassion — here, Pittelman wonders aloud why she keeps making the same mistakes in her relationships with others.

Just as on Yom Kippur, you’ll likely leave Why Do We Want What We Want? with some heavy realizations about yourself, even as you have a renewed commitment to change.

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