Describe by Hannah Jadagu

On Describe, Hannah Jadagu learns the hard way that distance is relative. After 2023 debut album Aperture garnered glowing praise from outlets like The New York Times and NPR, Jadagu’s blossoming career took her away from her blossoming relationship in New York. “I was feeling love and gratitude, but also guilt about being away for my job,” she recalled. “Being a musician requires sacrificing time–And one thing about me, I'm a quality time girlie.” Her expansive second album sees her grappling with that separation, finding connections that extend beyond the physical and strengthening her own voice in the process. Describe verberates with that tension, between wanting connection and craving space. Its lyrics, as on her debut, ache with an emotional specificity that can only be pulled from lived experience. “I’ve been five thousand miles away,” she sings over ricochetting hi-hats on “More”—“Why does three thousand feel like more?”

But that distance also pushed Jadagu to explore new dimensions of her sound. “I'm super into artists that are able to mix analog with modern,” she said, and moving to California for the summer gave her the opportunity to meet new collaborators and experiment with analog synthesizers and drum machines. And while the warm hum of her guitar was her primary instrument for Aperture, she began to feel that her muscle memory of the instrument was holding her back. “It was freeing to be able to sit at a synth and drone on one note while I explored my vocals," she said. ”I found that to be a bit more freeing than playing on a guitar.” Working with producer Sora Lopez at his studio in Altadena and remotely on a few songs with Aperture co-producer and collaborator Max Baby out of Paris, Jadagu carved out a sound on Describe that is both distinctively hers and a total departure from the distorted guitar melodies of her debut.

Describe’s debut single “My Love,” which Jadagu wrote shortly after releasing Aperture and moving “three thousand miles” from the intimacy and comfort of her home in New York, is emblematic of that sonic shift: Opening with an effervescent synth and a propulsive percussive rhythm, the song’s instrumentation is at once euphoric and reserved, making room for Jadagu’s diaphanous vocals while still maintaining the heartbeat of a kick drum and buzzing synth bassline. “I’m starting to miss not waking up with your face,” she sings, trying to make up for distance over the phone through a bad connection as small electronic flourishes spring up around her lush vocals.

“Gimme Time” is a softer and more soulful turn for Jadagu, layering the textured tone of an electric piano atop lyrics about learning about oneself in the absence of the comforts of home. “Doing Now” with its collage-like soundscapes, combining a deceptively simple guitar melody with her hypnotic vocals repeating the song’s self-aware refrain: “Timid, I get so timid.” “Normal Today” sounds like nothing she’s previously released, thrumming with icy industrialism that melts into pizzicato violins. Jadagu’s honeyed vocals seem to come from all angles, an omnipresent narrator of her own inner transformation.

On the album’s title track, she moves even further out of her comfort zone, the lightest of padded synths surround her voice, like a nonhuman chorus backing her as she sings about the destructive patterns that develop in a relationship: “This dance that we’ve been doing/ Lost its groove.” Throughout Describe, Jadagu digs deeper by paring her melodies down to their essence: “Couldn’t Call” delivers one of the album’s most poignant and contemplative moments with just Jadagu’s voice and the sparkle of a piano; “DIAA” is a slow-burn that uses her guitar as a counterpoint to her lyrics, partner to a one-sided conversation about the loneliness of life as an artist. Throughout the record, her voice is a light in the dark—soft, intimate, and sensual on “Perfect,” cheeky and cute on “Tell Me That.”

Much of Describe, though, is about what goes unsaid: “A lot of this album is me trying to figure out how to express ideas that aren’t always so concrete,” Jadagu said. “It's just a flow of things that I'm feeling and going through and expressing.” It’s fitting, then, that Describe ends with “Bergamont,” which finds Jadagu singing some of her most brutally honest lyrics to date over a layered synth that mimics the tension and release of a long, cleansing breath. “I hope you find something true to you,” she sings. On Describe, Jadagu is searching for the words to describe the truth, on her terms, relishing in the uncertainty in that journey.

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