Jenn Rawling Releases 'Golden Colors'

Courtesy: In Music We Trust

(Press Release) ​On her third full-length, Portland, Oregon-based artist and songwriter Jenn Rawling delivers Golden Colors, a ten-track collection of harmony rich indie-folk songs that embody the D.I.Y. spirit.

Recorded with friends and
fellow musicians in a house in Durango, Colorado, and co-produced with Awna Teixeira (of Po Girl) and Inajah Lujan (of In/planes), Golden Colors is Rawling's first record created outside of a traditional studio. "I rented a small house and invited a handful of musical friends to co-produce and create the album," Rawling says of the experience.  "I invited some very talented players and singers, everyone's in really great bands and projects.  What a cast of collaborators: Awna Teixeira, Inaiah Lujan, Desirae Garcia, Fred Kosak, Chela Lujan, and Alissa Wolf.  We stayed on site together, which afforded us the luxury to work long hours and create a container of intimacy, friendship, and comfortability, which are all important components of recording for me.  Inaiah Lujan was on board with years of sound experience, the right equipment, and a passion for home recording.  There was a great synergy in this group of people." The result is a record that mixes the richness of Rawling's voice and lyrics with the grit of Americana in the caldron of creative collaboration.  Golden Colors journeys through heartbreak, renewal, connection, and betrayal, ultimately transforming these experiences into a devotion to feel the love to keep on walking, no matter what.  Rawling created this record "as an offering of beauty and healing to the broken world."

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​It honors those who bring balance, resistance, and forge another way forward, and offers healing to those seeking it.  Rawling wrote all the songs on her baritone ukulele and envisioned rich harmonies and instrumental soundscapes around them.  Her goal for Golden Colors was to have subtle, but beautiful accompaniment and vocal harmonies to take the songs to another level, surpassing the folk genre, while remaining rooted in the tradition. 

"I feel like we achieved that," she says of the album's sound.  "I'm really happy with the attention we gave and how we addressed each song with so much detail and focus.  I'm trying to write songs that come from the heart and are less about fulfilling expectations of a particular genre or sound."Golden Colors was more than recording a collection of songs for Rawling, the entire process was profound for her and her friends.  "The process was amazing.  We had so much fun making this record together. That's what I'll always hear when I listen to the songs, my friends, the voices of these fantastic people who really showed up and brought their whole selves to this project.  It was so wonderful and reaffirming.  Not to mention, how talented they are and how awesome they all sound."

​Rawling brought to life the lyrics by focusing on her vocals and finding variation in her voice, something she paid close attention to.  "The lyrics are central to the songs.  The instrumentation supports the vocals and builds the motion and mood of the songs.  I got the vocals exactly how I wanted them.  This meant being mindful about using my voice intentionally and appropriately, to fit the drama of the song, to create strong harmonies, to sing confidently," she says.

​"Jenn's voice, always expressive, takes on all new tints and hues in these songs.  And her poetry flows like a mountain stream, beautiful but full of mystery." - Michael Rene Zuzel, Jefferson WordWorks.