INARA GEORGE | “THE YOUTH OF ANGST” | RELEASE ME RECORDS | JUNE 5tH, 2020

Bio:

Inara George welcomes a new bundle!

The Bird and The Bee vocalist has been getting together with producer Wendy Wang for a couple of hours, here and there, off and on over the past few years, working on a handful of songs that will now be released as the three-song bundle “The Youth of Angst” via Release Me Records on June 5th.

“Wendy started playing with The Bird and The Bee when we released our second album,” George says. “I remember being impressed with her right away. That was about 12 years ago, and since then she’s become an in-demand producer and songwriter, as well as a dear friend and collaborator. I’m equally proud of her and in awe of her.”

George continues, “There was no rush on my side, and Wendy’s been super busy with her own career, so it took a few years to finish by getting together for a few hours every so often. Maybe I had it in mind to make a full album? Or maybe a traditional EP?”

As it turns out, George got the word “bundle” stuck in her head after a conversation with a friend.

“Maybe I just thought she said ‘bundle?’”

No matter, it stuck, and in fact “The Youth of Angst” feels like a bundle. Fresh, even considering its long development, and innocent, even with a song called “Sex In Cars”.

“I wrote ‘Sex In Cars’ after the artist Terry Allen asked if I’d be a part of an art installation he was creating for The Contemporary Austin. When he asked me to write the song, I immediately thought of a photograph by RJ Shaughnessy that I had bought as a gift for my husband.” The cover of “The Youth of Angst” features that Shaughnessy shot and the song itself is as bare as the subject matter.

“Wendy and I recorded several different versions of this song,” George explains. “But there was something about more production that seemed to make it slip away from its initial intention.” The version that made it to the final recording is actually the original voice memo that George sent to Allen. “I still haven’t had a chance to see that installation, I hope I can someday... soon,” George says.

Innocence isn’t just for “Sex In Cars” here. Youth… memories of... loss of… is at the core of this group of songs that, although just a bundle, plays with a moving, dramatic arc.

“‘1973’ is a song I wrote for a friend,” George explains. “She lost a child almost ten years ago and to mark his birthday every year, I write a song. The songs end up being about him, but also about her and ‘1973’ is really a love song about our friendship. As for “Brother,” it’s pretty simple: “I wrote this song for my brother, haha. No one will ever know you better than your brother can.”

“The Youth of Angst” is the first in a planned series of collaborative releases “with a little theme and not the huge pressure of a full album,” George says about how she plans to make this long experiment into something more frequent. For this release “I wanted to write from the perspective of my younger self, but also with the idea that I could never actually have that perspective again. I suppose this bundle is nostalgic for a time and feeling that isn’t really possible to recreate, or only possible to recreate in my imagination.”

Understanding what once was and what will be is especially important now, in the new reality of 2020.

“I think we are all kind of grappling with this reality right now. We can only move forward from here. Life won’t be the same for a while, or maybe ever. But it’s nice to dream about the past while re-imagining the future, and I like the idea of doing these little collaborations, especially in these times of isolation.”

Inara George’s three-song bundle “The Youth of Angst” arrives on June 5th via Release Me Records.