Since announcing her third full-length record “New Truth”, Jenny O. (full name Jennifer Anne Ognibene) has shared a new song every two weeks. Now she has shared the album’s fourth single “Even If I Tried.” New Truth is due out June 19th via Mama Bird Recording Co. On the new song Ognibene delivers an upbeat and sunny melody about breaking free from the toxic people in your life. She rejoices in discovering she is better off without the “dead inside” accomplice: “But good news!/No one has to talk to you/The world keeps turning/And you, you fade away.”
In a press release Ognibene shared her inspiration behind the new track: “Everyone knows somebody who is always a critic and just won’t listen. Often those with the strongest opinions have the most uninspired lives. People exist this way for years, decades, generations. Fortunately, you can ditch them for supportive friends and a life of curiosity and fun.”
Prior to “Even If I Tried,”Ognibene released the track “What About That Day,” a cathartic daydream featuring Ognibene’s gentle timbre and surrounding ethereal harmonies. She also recently shared this note relating to her forthcoming album:
“Hey, Here’s my new album, it’s called “New Truth”. New Truth is coming to terms with my deaf ear. It’s any new accepted reality. It’s the hilarious way I wore my hair for a week before cutting it away from my face. The songs are as personal as ever—continued misadventures of an introvert in Hollywood. I think it’s relatable—heartache and epiphany—I hope people like it?
I’m singing lower sometimes, I always assumed I’d move back into my lower register, I finally have. Hard to get power that way, but I don’t sound like a little kid. I’ll have to practice singing them a lot, and it will be trickier to pull off live. I recorded this album with Kevin Ratterman, who is so fast, so patient, willing to try anything, and so much fun. It was important to me to have a good time while making it, and we did. I played all the guitars on this record. I wanted to channel the freedom of the Home and Work EPs, but recorded way better. I took solos! I played bass, except Rachel Goodrich did the funkier two songs because her time is better than mine. The past couple albums were tracked live to tape with a rhythm section, so someone would quickly learn something great and close to my demo but not exactly. I wanted to play bass this time.
Kevin set up his nice microphone at my place so I could do all my vocals alone while he was making another record. It’s the best way—much faster and more free to experiment by myself. Building harmonies on a whole album with an engineer can get frustrating, communicating between each take.
Since the announcement of her upcoming new album, ‘New Truth,’ musician Jenny O has released a new single every two weeks, dropping most recently “Even If I Tried,” a 60s pop adjacent banger that revels in its newfound confidence as the single captures the sentiment of a person whose finally said “F You” to all the nonsense and toxic people.
“I’m in mono now forever / It was there and now it’s gone” Jenny O. sings on the opening track to, and debut single from, New Truth, her first LP since losing hearing in her right ear. This shrugging happenstance tends to populate much of the rest of the album, which often touches on the recent memory of a soured relationship, as well as the performative and totally meaningless conversations we suffer through on a daily basis.
In spite of this state of resignation, though, New Truth has a much-needed calming tone to it, with O. delivering smooth layered vocals over chilled-out guitar solos. Even if the playful details were omitted from the final recordings—such as the “Muppet background harmonies” on “God Knows Why” detailed below—the songs all still feel breezy, especially with the help of the newly published “Old Habits” video.
Finding the perfect balance between an upbeat melody and more serious lyrics, “Even If I Tried” sounds at first like a tune that could have been pulled right from the feel good catalogue of a California coast band straight out of the 1960s. Dig deeper, and this psychedelic pop song unfolds as it follows one person’s realization that the people letting her down will never change.
“Everyone knows somebody who is always a critic and just won’t listen. Often those with the strongest opinions have the most uninspired lives,” O says. “People exist this way for years, decades, generations. Fortunately, you can ditch them for supportive friends and a life of curiosity and fun.”
Jenny O’s latest string of singles and subsequent upcoming album come after a label change — O is now with Mama Bird Recording Co. — and since the loss of hearing in one ear. Personal and uninhibited, O notes she is back doing what she loves as she continues to push her music to new places.
1. “God Knows Why”
Well, I lost most of the hearing in my right ear so I wrote this after that happened. Each verse is about a different inexplicable event. Originally it had really funny Muppet background harmonies, but they were fighting with the guitar so in the end I took them out. They still make me laugh in their absence and I can’t wait to do them live sometime.
2. “I Don’t Want to Live Alone Anymore”
I had been living alone for a few years when I wrote this. I’m amused by the effects of solitude and obsessed with the arrangement of my few possessions.
3. “Color Love”
I want this song to feel like getting in a small boat with a partner and rowing all night through a dimly lit, rainforest-river kind of Disney ride, with creatures and plants and thousands of stars. I imagine we both have to work in the morning, but we’ve managed to have this night for ourselves. It’s about growing-old-together love, and how lucky that is, and how important it is to always be maintaining it and not take it for granted.
4. “Old Habits”
This is the crux of it all, the journey. Trying to improve or connect, missing, trying again with insight, missing differently, and on and on. We can transform, and decades later we can still mess up. The key is to enjoy and be in awe of the unending process. Also, what’s funny to me is while I was first writing it, it felt like a distraction. I was trying to finish all the songs for New Truth and I kept hearing this one and playing it, just chords and melody, searching for lyrics, but felt like I should be working on another one that was closer to being finished. It was weeks before I realized it was important for the record and, in fact, a favourite. How stupid it is to feel guilty when working on one song over another.
5. “What About That Day”
This is about looking back at a romantic day after a relationship has soured. It’s over—the actual day-to-day has been wrought with conflict. The only reason it went on so long was because of the magic of that one day. We’ve repeated its memory over and over again.
6. “Not My Guy”
I gave this one a long guitar solo in elegy to the twentieth century (RIP). I can’t wait to play it live with my band.
7. “Even If I Tried”
I wrote this chorus for my last album, Peace & Information, but I couldn’t figure out the verse lyrics until I was writing New Truth. I was excited about achieving my second song ever to start with the chorus. This was, for me, an accomplishment, as I love a pop song that starts with the chorus, but it just never comes together that way. I was crying over a breakup while I recorded the guitar solo, but had to finish the final session—that’s funny to me now.
8. “Small Talk”
I’m awful at small talk. If I don’t simply excuse myself and walk away because I’m overcome with nerves and have a flight response, I try to find something I really do want to discuss, which takes a second, so sometimes I’ll say nothing. I don’t want to just fill space. I find many typical entry questions problematic, so I’ll try to keep some good questions at hand. Everybody is suffering, and I heard that a truly uniting question could be, “In which ways do you suffer?”
I actually tried it a few times with near-strangers. I tried mentioning suffering a couple times on stage, it didn’t work, so I stopped doing it. I still don’t know what to say to an audience. It’s just so absurd to say to a group of people at a concert, “How is everybody doing?” And then everyone goes “Wooo!” Because it’s like, man, someone in here just lost somebody. Someone in here is fighting cancer. Definitely. But we all go “Wooo!” and that’s the same as the cashier asking how you are and you say, “Good how are you?” because what are you going to tell them, “I’m depressed, actually”? I’ve tried that too. It’s all completely fascinating to me. So that’s what this song is about. I want to deepen the conversation. Let’s get into it. I mean, with friends and family. I actually just prefer not to talk to strangers.
9. “Psychedelic Love”
I didn’t really want to put this one on the record, but other people liked it. I was seeking a major love, and at this point I was able to be very specific about what I wanted in a partner. Everybody has different dynamics and desires, but this was a personal spell for me and it worked.
10. “A Different Kind of Life”
Sometimes we spend too long in a situation trying to figure it out—exactly why it doesn’t work, trying to solve some riddle or move mountains, and I am here to say stop doing so much math. Some things line up and others don’t. Things can just flow, and you can expend energy more efficiently. An easier, more peaceful life is around the corner.
11. “Hard to Say”
This is written about finding oneself around someone new while still hurting over something else that just ended. Trying to describe that—not quite heartbroken, I wouldn’t really call it “love” because it never really got there, it was something else. And now it’s over, and I’m hurt, but there’s this new person (that’s who I’m singing to). And I’m struggling to be present but I don’t want them to leave. It’s sort of an emotional purgatory. Moving on can heal us, but if we haven’t sorted out or learned from what just happened, we might destroy the new thing.
12. “Seek Peace”
This is a meditation for trying to do right in the world while trying to survive. Asking some questions I have to keep asking. I was pretty blissed out after recording all the vocal parts. New Truth is coming to terms with my deaf ear,” shares Jenny O. “It’s any new accepted reality. It’s the hilarious way I wore my hair for a week before cutting it away from my face,” says O. The songs are as personal as ever–continued misadventures of an introvert in Hollywood. I think it’s relatable – heartache and epiphany – I hope people like it?”
The official music video for Jenny O.’s“I Don’t Want to Live Alone Anymore”, the second single off her forthcoming album ‘New Truth’, out June 19th on Mama Bird Recording Co.
Jenny O (full name Jennifer Anne Ognibene) invites you into her cathartic daydream in her new music video for “What About That Day,” the third single from her forthcoming album New Truth, due out June 19th from Mama Bird Recording Co.
The video was shot on Kodak Super 8 film by filmmaker and cinematographer Sam Gerzai while on a beach trip to Malibu. But with Ognibene’s gentle timbre and ethereal harmonies wondering “What about that day?” the peaceful crashing of the waves lend itself to a more melancholic, semi-nostalgic vibe.
In a press release Ognibene says the song captures “an obviously bad partnership that has been riding on the fumes of one or two magical days, tops. The romance is done, but that one day kept us grasping at something that could have been and wasn’t.”
Ognibene adds: “I never would have thought this song would come out while the world was in isolation, but I guess this is its time. The only time I ever lived truly alone, I felt nuts. I am amused by obsessive rearranging and celebration of my things.
Jenny O. (bass, guitar, synthesizer, vocals) Kevin Ratterman (drums) Josh Adams (cymbals)
The official music video for “What About That Day”, the third single from Jenny O.’s forthcoming album ‘New Truth’, out June 19th from Mama Bird Recording Co.
Hey, Here’s my new album, it’s called “New Truth” New Truth is coming to terms with my deaf ear. It’s any new accepted reality. It’s the hilarious way I wore my hair for a week before cutting it away from my face.
The songs are as personal as ever–continued misadventures of an introvert in Hollywood. I think it’s relatable- heartache and epiphany- I hope people like it?
I’m singing lower sometimes, I always assumed I’d move back into my lower register, I finally have. Hard to get power that way, but I don’t sound like a little kid. I’ll have to practice singing them a lot, and it will be trickier to pull off live. I recorded this album with Kevin Ratterman, who is so fast, so patient, willing to try anything, and so much fun. It was important to me to have a good time while making it, and we did.
I played all the guitars on this record. I wanted to channel the freedom of the Home and Work EPs but recorded way better. I took solos! I played bass except Rachel Goodrich did the funkier two songs because her time is better than mine. The past couple albums were tracked live to tape with a rhythm section, so someone would quickly learn something great & close to my demo but not exactly. I wanted to play bass this time. Kevin set up his nice microphone at my place so I could do all my vocals alone while he was making another record. It’s the best way–much faster and more free to experiment by myself. Building harmonies on a whole album with an engineer can get frustrating, communicating between each take.
Ok I got to go take this little black dog on a walk. See you soon, Jenny O
The Fat Angel Sings 