Wendy Eisenberg [Red]

Wendy Eisenberg has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and anartist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blisteringfree improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020's Auto and the2024 free-jazz sprawler Viewfinder, they've made a signature of ambition. Afterspending the past five years experimenting in different bands, genres, and creativechallenges, and following a period of self-confrontation that they liken to a personalexorcism, Eisenberg has arrived at a milestone. The poetic and formally daring folksongs of Wendy Eisenberg comprise their most certain vision yet. The songs began to take root in 2020 when Eisenberg moved from WesternMassachusetts-where they'd lived for a few years after attending Boston's NewEngland Conservatory-and relocated to Brooklyn. Longing for the pastoral feel oftheir former home, Eisenberg gravitated towards the warm sounds of country and folk."The songs are genuinely folk songs, " Eisenberg says of their record. "The productionis less about seeing what the guitar might be capable of and more accepting theinherent strangeness of the languages it has spoken for the last century and a half." On Wendy Eisenberg, the artist creates their own paradigm with a tight-knit circle oflongtime friends and collaborators-including bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer RyanSawyer, and co-producer Mari Rubio (more eaze), who handled pedal steel, synth, andstring arrangements-recording often at Eisenberg's home and bringing a gorgeousensemble texture to each note. "I was finally around people who accepted me, "Eisenberg says. "Many of the songs on this record were written in that new feeling. Iwanted it to be incredibly comforting as it describes some massive changes inself-understanding and self-regard. It's about relief."