Singer-songwriter Jamie Drake has released a new single, “Beginnings.” With Bossa Nova undertones melding perfectly with warm pop sensibilities that Drake is known for, the song serves as a taste of what is to come on her forthcoming album New Girl which is out June 10 via AntiFragile Music.

Jamie shares: “I wrote ‘Beginnings’ with one of my artist friends, Austin Myles Grant, in the summer of 2019. We’d never written before but I was a fan of his songs and playing and thought we might be able to create some magic. He sat down and showed me one of his guitar ideas and I immediately heard a melody over it along with lyrics. In less than an hour, ‘Beginnings’ was born, but it would take another couple of years (+ a pandemic) and reworking the song to get the recording into a place that spoke the way I was hearing it. It had started out with a bit more of a classical / sinister vibe, and I knew that it had the potential to turn into more of a breezy, bossa-adjacent type of song; it was just a matter of time. I returned to LA in the summer of 2021 and we reworked it into the song it is today. In the interim I had became OBSESSED with a song by Hirth Martinez called, ‘Altogether Alone.’ That, along with Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, and other songs I discovered like ‘Alone Again,’ by Love, really influenced the feeling I wanted on this record.

We recorded ‘Beginnings’ with (producer) Rich Jacques and Austin played just about everything on it, aside from all the vintage keyboards that my friend, Zac Rae (Death Cab for Cutie) added. I later found myself in a serendipitous video shoot with a my photographer friend, Danielle Rubi, at a friend’s home in Laurel Canyon.  It ended up being one of those once in a lifetime collaborations where we were both open to whatever magic wanted to happen – in four takes – and I ended up editing the video while I was in France (which gave me a lot of pride because I’d previously been married to a music video director in my 20s). I didn’t plan my outfit or anything; it just happened to be what I was wearing for the last photo set up. In fact, looking back on it, it was the weirdest outfit of the day, which, in retrospect made it the perfect outfit for dancing around LOVE street in. You can see the neighborhood haunt, Pace, in the background at dusk, and feel the magic of that historical neighborhood where artists like Jim Morrison used to reside. I love that two of my videos for this album were shot in Laurel Canyon since so many of my heros used to live in those hills.. What a treat! All in all, I’m super proud of this song and this video, and hope to bring some true joy and freedom to folks.”

In 2020 Jamie found herself living in upper Ojai, California, on an airstream property. It was there she discovered Getz/Gilberto ’76, the live album by Stan Getz and João Gilberto. “It was a pandemic so I bought a bike and listened to that album every day while riding around with my dog Moxie and a JBL speaker in the basket. I knew those songs had gotten into my marrow when I met and wrote “It’s A New Life” with Rich Jacques. It’s the first song I’ve ever written that has a bossa feeling to it and I knew I would make my next album with him after that. The feeling of “It’s A New Life” was the world I wanted to live in musically.”  In the fall of 2021 the two reconvened along with artist and multi-instrumentalist Austin Myles Grant to start working on New Girl. The trio was invited to record at a private residence set in the Santa Monica mountains, seeped in the purity and quiet of nature where they could fully unfurl and connect musically.   

New Girl is also informed by Jamie’s discovery of ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families) which she credits for changing her life. Through that work and a trip she made to North Carolina to be near her family during the pandemic, Jamie has found herself healing old wounds. She shares, “Music’s always felt like a mysterious, second language to me. A melody will fall down from the sky when I’m driving or in the shower, and I’ll record a voice memo on my phone so I don’t forget it. Lyrics don’t come as easily to me but they’re always biographical. It’s difficult for me to have the desire to write a song if it’s not personal.”