A collaboration between songwriter Natalie Smith and producer Eric Jackowitz, LA‘s Cape Weather is a vehicle for two musicians who felt it was finally time to make something of their own. Both have played in various bands, with Jackowitz drumming for Nick Waterhouse and Smith being a mainstay of the Oakland scene, but the friends started writing together over the internet and the inspiration flowed. Which isn’t to say it’s a closed shop, with a revolving live line-up that currently features members from M83 and Jenny Lewis’ band.
Over a hundred songs emerged from the period of writing, and the pair picked their favourite ten to be released as three EPs. The first, Hunny Vol. 1, is rooted in the millennial experience, with themes of anxiety, loneliness, mental illness and insecurity. But second single ‘Get It Right’ flips the view, instead looking at the inversion of such themes. The remedies and reliefs, often just an arm’s length away.
“The chorus came to me while walking through a California native garden at the LA Arboretum,” Smith explains. “I thought to myself, how can a simple gesture such as walking through wildflowers feel so right? When I got home, I plunked out the chords on the old upright piano in my living room and everything else just flowed out.”
Hunny Vol. 1 is out now and you can get it from the Cape Weather Bandcamp page.
