In June of last year, we introduced Vancouver-based songwriter Jillian Lake. An artist who “has made a name with intimate, personal folk songs,” as we wrote, “though has increasingly pushed her sound into richer, more urgent territory without sacrificing any of the heartfelt charm.” Single ‘Tactile’ embodied the power of this style, “presenting,” as we continued, “an exploration of grief in all of its complexity, an emotional landscape as bustling, nuanced and contradictory as any urban space.” Loss, Lake communicated, is intangible, slightly surreal, yet no less able to alter a person than the most apparent of physical injuries.
Now Jillian Lake has returned with ‘Cold Where You Are’, a brand new single equally attuned to emotional forces and their significant gravitational pull. Namely the strange tension of watching a loved one attempt to navigate a difficult period, willing more than anything to save them from the turmoil but conscious of being dragged into the mire yourself. “It’s cold in the water,” Lake sings in the refrain, “It’s cold where you are.” These lines underscore the distance and remove of that other person, even when delivered with such compassion and empathy. Again, it is this tension which marks the Jillian Lake sound. Between the heaviness of life’s struggles and the emotional warmth which tries to see us through. Watch the visualizer shot and directed by Lauren Kurc below:
‘Cold Where You Are’ is out now and available from the usual places.
