Jill Sobule Returns With New Album “Nostalgia Kills”

Produced by her good friend, Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee, the music on Nostalgia Kills has been chosen from a collection of over 100 songs, representing nearly a decade’s worth of material since the release of her last proper solo album, California Years (2009). Her music is always worth the wait.

“Nostalgia can be wonderful and amazing. It’s OK to look back. But then you gotta get the f%@! out of there,” so says Jill Sobule, on the theme of her new album.

The New York Times says Jill makes “grown-up music for an adolescent age”, here she turns her wit and poet’s eye on herself more than ever before, revisiting moments throughout her life that made her into the person she is today. It’s an poignant look back at childhood — “exorcising some junior high school demons,” as she puts it! How many artists of any age can write a song like “I Don’t Wanna Wake Up,” described as “an Old Testament head trip inspired by a bad breakup, the death of a parent, and microdosing mushrooms”? Let alone have the nerve to make it their album’s opening track?

The album was recorded at Lee’s home studio in Los Angeles with a supporting cast of players that included John Doe (X), Wayne Kramer (The MC5), Petra Haden (That Dog), Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish), and Richard Barone (The Bongos). “This was done with a lot of friends,” she says. “It was very organic.” Many of the final mixes have elements of the original demos, recorded with various apps on Jill’s iPad.

“Almost Great” is a ukulele-laced ode to youthful brushes with success and adult battles with procrastination. “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth” is a beautifully rendered portrait of adolescent unrequited love, as Jill looks back at her first gay crush (“an incredible combination of Marcia Brady and future meth-smoking biker chick”).  “Headphones” and “Forbidden Thoughts” will be part of #Fuck7thGrade, a one-woman show commissioned by The City Theater in Pittsburgh, about “the worst year of my life,” and just the latest of Jill’s many forays into theater.

The press buzz got it right. Through her own experiences, she explores issues our society still collectively struggles with (LGBTQ rights, teen mental health, our unhealthy obsession with staying forever young) and gently skewers our tendency to dwell on the past at the expense of addressing the present. As she sings on the title track: “We look at ourselves in a long row of mirrors/We get smaller and smaller with each passing year/We have to keep moving or die.”

If you have any of her music, you’ll already know that you want this one. If you don’t, buy some asap, you are missing out!

More info/buy now: jillsobule.com | Amazon MP3 | More by Jill Sobule

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