Jess Klein

Jess Klein's musical integrity, coupled with her luminous personality, enthrall the listener, and saturate them with a deep, expressive soulfulness and a need for challenge... As artists mature, it's rarely a metamorphosis into someone wholly new, but a return to something existent and true in themselves. Such is the case with Jess Klein, whose sophomore release on Rykodisc, Strawberry Lover, finds the singer-songwriter drawing inspiration from both the outlook and the music of her childhood. "Much of the album is about trying to remain young at heart," she says, "and keeping your heart open when you become an adult and see some things you didn't expect to: heartache, loss, grief, anger. In a way, it's about trying to draw on the strengths I had as a child" the strength of openness especially, and using that in the face of some adult hardships. In that sense, the album is also about trying to maintain a child-like innocence even when that doesn't necessarily seem like the logical thing to do, or what everyone else is doing.Jess has undoubtedly earned the right to speak on the virtues of innocence from a place of experience. Prior to her last release, the critically acclaimed Draw Them Near (produced by Rykodisc president George Howard, and featuring Wilco drummer Ken Coomer), Jess recorded three independent albums and toured the US, UK and Japan with the likes of 10,000 Maniacs, Jill Sobule, and Luka Bloom. More recently, she was seen and heard with Erin McKeown and Rose Polenzani as part of the quartet Voices on the Verge, and contributed to the Peter Malick Project featuring Norah Jones.