New York’s Cassandra Jenkins released a new track and video for her poetically spoken song “Hard Drive” off her upcoming album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, out February 19 th on Ba Da Bing Records. “Hard Drive,” the third track and album centerpiece, opens with a voice memo Jenkins recorded at The Met Breuer: a security guard muses about Mrinalini Mukherjee’s hybrid textile and sculpture works, which were
then on display in a retrospective titled Phenomenal Nature. “When we lose our connection to nature, we lose our spirit, our humanity,” she explains about the song. Stuart Bogie’s saxophone and Josh Kaufman’s glittering guitar make way for Jenkins’ spoken word lyrics which constellates scenes from her life, gradually building and blossoming as she recreates a meditation guided by a friend who incants, “One, two,
three.”

It’s also not a coincidence that “Hard Drive” is released on Inauguration Day. “I’m happy to be releasing ‘Hard Drive’ on a day when we’re collectively turning the page in America,” says Cassandra. “A lot of ‘Phenomenal Nature’ was reflecting on ways to heal during the
Trump presidency when I was looking for inner strength and change. I hope today we can take a deep breath, count to three, let go of the last 4 years and start to look ahead at the next chapter.” 

She also adds, “This song is a ride through a strange month in my life in between two tours – the cancelled Purple Mountains tour and a West Coast run opening for Craig Finn. It’s part travel diary and part spiritual character study, weaving together encounters with a security guard at the Met Breuer, a bookkeeper in Topanga Canyon, my New York City driving
instructor, and a psychic at a birthday party. The opening line is pulled from a voice memo of the security guard who pulled me aside to share her thoughts on the exhibition on view, Mrinalini Mukherjee‘s ‘Phenomenal Nature’, and the song closes with Peri Lyons, the psychic who foretells ‘this year’s gonna be a good one.’ And I’m still wondering who, deep down, doesn’t want to hear that, even if that year was 2020?”