On “You Sing Like You’re Joking“, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, El Kempner, returns with a beautiful & introspective collection of songs, full of their trademark lyrical ability to spin universal yarns out of deeply personal moments.
Produced by Kempner, Julian Fader (Ava Luna), and Katie Von Schleicher (Frankie Cosmos), the nine-track project finds Kempner surveying the tectonic shifts in their life and career, which has blossomed in ways they never anticipated when they were starting out in Boston’s DIY scene in the early 2010s. And yet Kempner’s successes have been punctured by profound loss; much of “You Sing Like You’re Joking” grapples with broken and distanced friendships.
To that end, “You Sing Like You’re Joking” (a lyric pulled from opening track “Incisions”) acts as a catch-all for Kempner’s approach to relationships, which is marked by always wanting to go deeper. “I felt like it really encapsulated all the emotions of the record,” says Kempner, “which is just me trying to get to know people, trying to connect, and having a barrier or feeling resistance.”
