Jen Gloeckner Goes Soph

MOJO Music Magazine has described Gloeckner's sound as "spell-weaving.different, dark, ethereal, funky; an alluring big-sky, small-room mystery." The new album is an instinct-driven exploration of primal emotion, where minimal lyrics and layers of sound evoke a universal, gut-level knowledge of desire, separation, and the sacred connection of souls. Jen depicts the human condition through sound-raw, dirty, brutal, healing, serene, and holy all at once.

Gloeckner draws artistic inspiration from moods and images that she receives in dreams, and listeners discern a mythical, collective-unconsciousness underlying her music -songs that can be as daunting as the darkest nightmares and as redemptive as purest desire. At times Jen comes across as a fearsome seductress-cruelly masculine in her lyrical directness and often aggressive, driving rhythms, then delicate and weak with longing as a Victorian lady taking to her fainting couch. As on Miles Away, Mouth of Mars achieves impressive coherence in the masterful balance of the opposites it embraces.

Jen's adoptive parents recognized her music talents at a very early age and she began piano lessons at age 7. By 12, she composed her first songs after discovering the Beatles and spending hour after hour singing along with pop radio hits. Gloeckner began writing seriously a few years later, having been given her first acoustic guitar as a birthday gift and drawing inspiration from the likes of Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan. She soon transformed a spare bedroom into a home studio and began recording with help from friend and engineer Laird Scott.