Singer-songwriter Jess Klein stopped by Live & Local this week, following the release of her latest album “Dreaming Aloud.”
“I started writing it a couple years ago,” says Klein of the album, her first since 2023’s “When We Rise.” “I have a belief that we have a lot more agency and power inside ourselves than we maybe have been conditioned to think we do – so trying to reclaim our ability to imagine a better world, and then to make it happen, that’s a recurring theme for me. It’s a bunch of songs about trying to dream of something better.”
“Dreaming Aloud” is a ten-song aural feast, opening with a nostalgic title track inspired by a recent college reunion and closing with the rousing call to action “All It’ll Take.”
“I am done being small,” she sings on that final track. “I am here, and you are here, and there’s a new world we can make, and all we need is to want it.”
Those lyrics feel almost Lennonesque, but it wasn’t the Beatles she was aspiring to: Klein says her initial vision for “Dreaming Aloud” was “something like a cross between Astral Weeks and Led Zeppelin II.”
“And the funny thing is, when I said that to my producer (longtime collaborator Mark Addison), he was like, ‘cool, we can do that,'” she says with a laugh. “Both those albums make interesting use of space and ensemble, (and) I wanted to create something with a group of musicians, where I was willing to just trust what they were going to do whenever they stepped forward…
“I also wanted this to be acoustic-driven,” she adds. “I wanted the space for my voice to stretch out and to see what happens if we allow room for each other, a little bit more than I had in the past. That just felt like an important attitude to go in to both this album and my life.”
Album cover for Jess Klein’s “Dreaming Aloud.”
Listen to “Dreaming Aloud” and purchase the album on Bandcamp.
Now that the album is out, Klein is planning to head out on tour this summer and fall, with dates all over the central and eastern U.S. as well as a trip to the U.K. in September. Her next show is right here in Chapel Hill, though: she’s playing on the Southern Village Green at 7 p.m. this Sunday, July 12, as part of a duo with fellow local music legend Robert Sledge. (Sledge also has a busy year planned: he’s about to head back on tour with Ben Folds Five, to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of their debut album.) After that, Klein will be in her hometown of Hillsborough on Sunday, July 19, hosting her regular “Velvet Feast” potluck and song swap at the Eno House Artist’s Den along with Abigail Dowd and April Snow.
Follow Jess Klein on Instagram.
As for the reaction to the new album, now that it’s been out for about a month?
“It’s been really uplifting,” Klein says. “It’s just felt like people have a really personal response to it, and that means a lot to me. I got a lot of responses, like ‘this album made me weep’ – (and) it’s not that I want to make people cry, but I do want to give people permission to feel.”
Jess Klein stopped by Live & Local to discuss the new album and perform three songs live in the studio: “Dreaming Aloud,” “I Want To Be Love,” and “All It’ll Take.” Listen:
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