Jenny Banai is in the midst of recording her second full-length album, Couch Walker at Afterlife Studios in Vancouver with co-producer Scott Currie and engineer John Raham. Jenny often garners comparison to Feist. Her creative influences range from Andy Shauf to Patrick Watson to The Cranberries. She blends jazz, folk, and rock into sophisticated pop music that both celebrates and laments the dynamic of human relationships and the relationship with one’s self and with God. “The first lyrics of my latest single, ‘Gold,’ are “I’m returning”. What does it mean to return? In one ancient context, it means to repent. To repent also means to change direction,” explains Jenny. “This song was birthed from a direction switch I needed in my own heart; a reminder that my breath is for peace and truth. This is my source and my hope. One day, driving around the city, I had this image pop into my head of golden streets above our own, an existence that is unseen yet somehow covers our reality. I imagined a reality existing at the same time as our own, where peace and truth come from, where ancient and ageless hands are working, softening, moving, molding. At the end of the song, I share the metaphor of a clay vessel shattering. Shortly after I wrote ‘Gold,’ I discovered kintsugi, the Japanese artistry in which pottery is broken into pieces and then mended back together with gold. What synchronicity is this? I want this song to remind us all that we are broken to be formed. There is hope, although perhaps that is wholly unseen at the moment. But I pray that in some way, the pieces we embody will reflect the wholeness we hope for.”
