Two years on from her debut album, 2023’s acclaimed ‘Aperture’, life is wanting actually completely different for Hannah Jadagu. Within the time because the file’s launch, the Texas-raised, New York-based alt-pop star has fallen in love, graduated from faculty and gone on her first headline tour throughout Europe. A number of these experiences have formed her introspective, synth-driven second album ‘Describe’, which arrives right now.
The gap created by touring one other continent made Jadagu “extra cognizant of my very own being and that relationship that I’ve with one other particular person and the way my work and my way of life can have an effect on that in very actual methods”, she tells NME over video name from her New York residence. That helped inform the “genuine and weak” songs on the album, reminiscent of ‘Extra’, the place she sings: “I’ve been 5,000 miles away, why does 3,000 really feel like extra?”
On the similar time, touring and “taking part in the guitar day-after-day” additionally colored the way in which Jadagu approached the inventive course of for ‘Describe’ when it began again in the summertime of 2023. “I used to be making an attempt to write down new songs and making an attempt to determine the route for my new file, I discovered that the guitar for me was not amplifying my voice in the way in which that I wanted it to,” she says. “It wasn’t serving to me uncover new melodies that I may sing and stuff like that.
“So, I used to be like, ‘Let me simply attempt to play stuff on a MIDI keyboard’. After which, a yr later, I took it to my producers and we actually amped it up,” she continues. Though that strategy was “so releasing for what I used to be writing on the time”, the guitar continues to be by no means too removed from her facet: “On the file, there’s lots of songs with guitar, but it surely capabilities extra as accompaniment relatively than the sturdy rhythm-heavy factor that strikes it alongside.”
The title monitor ‘Describe’ is such an arresting opener. It actually units the stage for an album that’s sonically wider and emotionally deeper. Why did you assume that this tune was the best one to not solely open the album, however to call it after?
“After I first sat right down to strive making a brand new file, ‘Describe’ was the very first thing that I made, and that was in the summertime of 2023. So that is post-‘Aperture’ launch, and ‘Describe’ got here so naturally to me. I discovered myself taking part in round with new sounds, new themes lyrically, and I used to be simply captivated by the sonic panorama of what I used to be doing, however there was no album that got here of that.
“It took a full yr, till the summer season of 2024, the place I felt like each tune that I stored writing was main me to an album, and it was making me realise that in all these songs, I’m actually making an attempt to simply describe the methods through which I used to be feeling and the experiences that I used to be having. ‘Describe’ is the place it began, and it stored being a via line to the entire lyrics and the entire sounds, and simply making an attempt to determine what I needed to say. I don’t know if I’ll ever totally describe or articulate issues in the way in which that I hope to, however I’m at all times making an attempt.”
I really like how ‘Describe’ actually primes the listener to anticipate the sudden on this album, from the electronica of ‘Extra’ to the devastating piano second on ‘Couldn’t Name’ or perhaps a return to a extra guitar-driven sound on ‘Doing Now’.
“That’s why I made ‘Describe’ the primary monitor on the file. It prepares folks to be like, ‘Wait, what?’ There’s a lot that even occurs in that tune alone. There’s a lot of a journey that it takes with the strings and with the senses and with the naked vocal. There’s so much happening, and that was undoubtedly the purpose, to say, ‘Hey, this file isn’t gonna be regardless of the final file was, and that’s OK, however you’re in retailer for some actually attention-grabbing sounds and considerably of a development [from the last album].’”
With this mixture of synths and guitars on the file, it looks like there are lots of hidden layers inside layers throughout the album that make it come to life.
“I at all times say there’s lots of issues in there which can be felt however not heard. Some folks may name that just a little maximalist. On ‘Regular Right now’, there’s most likely about 200 stems, and it’s so much, and I kinda giggle at that as a result of perhaps I used to be doing an excessive amount of. However typically you may create little harmonics out of the meshing of issues, and typically that may create a extremely distinctive feeling.
“However we additionally strip it down a bit, like on ‘Doing Now’ or ‘Gimme Time’. There are moments the place it’s simply again to the core timelessness of a Michael Jackson tune – to not examine myself to Michael Jackson, however I like taking part in with that and going out and in of the analogue and the fashionable and simply looking for a steadiness between it. That’s why I’m very influenced by folks like FKA twigs or Rosalía as a result of they do this extraordinarily nicely and on the highest stage.”
Was tracklisting one thing that was actually essential to you on this album?
“There was main intent behind the tracklisting. That’s what stored me from ending the file or turning it in, as a result of I stored being like, ‘Wait, no. Ought to I put this tune proper there? This tune over there?’ [I wanted this album to] doc what it’s prefer to be very human and to be in a relationship and to be navigating issues if you’re 21. And I needed to point out chaos, however inform a free story via that.
“Do I make the best decisions [when tracklisting]? Who can say? That’s for the listener [to decide]. However I do take into consideration this stuff, and I actually care about stuff like tracklisting and the way the listener could make sense of the file for themselves and the way they’ll interpret it for themselves. And that’s at all times one thing I’m holding at the back of my thoughts once I’m making an album. And that’s why I like to make an album, ’trigger you get to inform a narrative.”
You recorded your first EP, 2021’s ‘What Is Going On?’, totally in your iPhone 7. So much has modified since, however how has your inventive course of developed?
“The best way that I feel it’s comparable is that lots of the songs begin in my room. It begins with simply me, the MIDI keyboard and all of the stuff I’ve at my disposal – which isn’t that a lot. I’ve acquired audio system, I’ve acquired a Scarlett, a keyboard, and I’ve acquired a guitar. I begin with considerably of a melody and gibberish, after which I begin to discover sure phrases, after which I attempt to concentrate on a theme, concentrate on a message, after which I construct the monitor round it.
“However then there’s songs like ‘Gimme Time’, the place that was the primary time I truly wrote a composition with any person else [album co-producer Sora Lopez]. After which as soon as we performed that stuff collectively and simply began including layers, then I got here up with the lyrics, freestyled lots of that. Went again, hashed it out, after which we completed it. So it’s modified in some methods, the place I’m open to collaborating from the start of a tune – but it surely’s nonetheless very tight-knit, not too many cooks within the kitchen.
“A number of occasions I’ll hold the primary [or] second factor I do, which I’ve at all times completed since I began making music once I was like 14. As soon as I attempt to workshop and return and redo one thing, I’ve discovered that’s probably not my vibe. In order that’s one thing that I nonetheless do and I’ve at all times completed, and I most likely will at all times do.
“I’ve gotten so much higher about not speeding issues, however perhaps Sora would say in a different way. I don’t like spending a very long time making stuff [laughs], as a result of I really feel like should you don’t acquired it, you don’t acquired it. Some persons are completely different. Some folks spend six years making an album and that’s cool. For me, the journey that I’m at in these two years isn’t the identical that I’m gonna be at two years later.”
What’s in your thoughts nowadays and the way do you assume that may come via in your future music?
“Nowadays, I’m making an attempt to make the subsequent file. I’m simply very lucky, as a result of after I graduated college, I’ve been in a position to do music full-time. So, now I’m simply making an attempt to determine the subsequent step in what I wanna say subsequent and what that appears like.”
“I’m residing a really peaceable life now, making an attempt to determine my routine exterior of being a pupil. And I’m very a lot in love now. Simply having fun with life and making an attempt to see what comes from it. I’m taking my time with it, and there’s not even a single tune completed, however that’s sort of what I’m doing. It’s simply I’m at all times making an attempt to navigate, at all times making an attempt to see how I could be higher and at all times making an attempt to see, you realize, what else it’s that I’ve to say.”
Hannah Jadagu’s new album ‘Describe’ is out now by way of Sub Pop.
