Deep Sea Diver

Fri Feb 04 2022 at 09:30 pm

2501 Kettner Blvd San Diego CA 92101 | San Diego

Casbah San Diego
Publisher/HostCasbah San Diego
Deep Sea Diver The third full-length
from Deep Sea Diver, Impossible Weight is a work of sublime highs and
mesmerizing lows, its restless intensity both unsettling and
transcendent. For bandleader Jessica Dobson, the album’s sonic and
emotional expanse stems from a period of sometimes-brutal
self-examination—a process that began not long after the Seattle-based
four-piece finished touring for their acclaimed sophomore effort
Secrets.
“We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour
ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from
making music, and unable to find joy in it,” says the
vocalist/multi-instrumentalist, whose bandmates include her husband
Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar,
synth). “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter,
and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”
As
she stepped back from the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the
depression she’d been struggling with, and soon started volunteering for
Aurora Commons (a drop-in center for unhoused people, most of whom are
drug-dependent and engage in street-survival-based sex work). “I spent a
lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a
new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the
luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind
those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what
their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me
up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my
songs.”
Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park (Pedro the Lion,
Ruler) and mainly recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of
Justice, Impossible Weight brings that emotional excavation to a more
grandiose sound than Deep Sea Diver has ever attempted. Along with
revealing the limitless imagination of Dobson’s guitar work—a prodigious
talent she’s previously shown in playing lead guitar for artists like
Beck and The Shins—the album’s lush textures and mercurial arrangements
more fully illuminate the power of her vocals. “’I’d never produced a
record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at
some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to
completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my
production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.”
On
the title track to Impossible Weight, Deep Sea Diver prove the
incredible precision of those instincts. Featuring guest vocals from
Sharon Van Etten, “Impossible Weight” unfolds in radiant grooves and
frenetic fits of guitar, its lyrics presenting a bit of wisdom extracted
from Dobson’s time at Aurora Commons. “In the past I’d often tell
myself, ‘This other person is going through something worse than I am,
so their pain weighs more,’” she says. “‘Impossible Weight’ is about
finding more compassion for yourself, instead of discrediting your pain
in that way.”
The luminous opening track to Impossible Weight,
“Shattering the Hourglass” makes for a perfect introduction to the
album’s sonic complexity, beginning in intimate reflection before
shifting into a wildly sprawling anthem. But despite its kinetic
orchestration, the song’s dynamics never overshadow its central lyric:
“You don’t have to be strong enough.” “I wrote that one the same week my
friend and former bandmate Richard Swift was spending his last days in
hospice because of complications from alcoholism,” notes Dobson,
referring to the beloved singer/songwriter/producer, also known for his
work with The Shins. “I was thinking about how everyone’s facing some
kind of battle, and how I wish we could all talk more openly about these
things. I wish we could give ourselves that license to fall apart, so
that others can help carry us to a better place.”
In her
commitment to radical vulnerability, Dobson lays her own needs bare on
songs like “Lights Out”: a defiant yet strangely delicate track that
takes on a thrilling momentum as she cycles through an entire world of
moods, her voice careening from growling to tender. “‘Lights Out’ was
written around the time I hit that wall when we first started working on
the record; it’s about fumbling through the darkness and knowing I damn
well need help getting out,” she says. Meanwhile, on “Wishing,” Deep
Sea Diver deliver a stormy and psych-leaning number sparked from
Dobson’s viewing of a documentary on Nina Simone. “She had a husband who
was physically and emotionally abusive to her, and it made me think
about the idea of being under the thumb of someone else, and not knowing
how to get in control of your life again,” Dobson says. “I have a
tendency to try to resolve the narrative by the time I get to the end of
the song, but for that one I didn’t—which felt right, because that’s
what life is like.”
On “Eyes Are Red (Don’t Be Afraid),”
Impossible Weight reaches its glorious climax, a seven-minute epic that
builds to an instrumental breakdown centered on Dobson’s beautifully
unhinged guitar work. Not only a triumphant turning point in her
musicianship and production approach, “Eyes Are Red (Don’t Be Afraid)”
marks a major leap in Dobson’s songwriting. “Lyrically that’s the most
uncomfortable song for me on the album,” she says, noting that the track
was partly inspired by Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Brett
Kavanaugh and the collective trauma endured by women everywhere.
“There’s so much anger and frustration in it, and it made sense to
express that in plainspoken lyrics. I ended up with these phrases that
are almost like mantras: ‘Don’t be afraid. Don’t be ashamed.’ A lot of
my musical heroes tend to be very poetic, but sometimes there’s so much
more meaning in saying things simply.”
For Dobson, redefining the
limits of her artistry goes hand-in-hand with certain identity issues
she faced during the making of Impossible Weight. “I was adopted and
just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican
and half-Jewish,” she explains. “Discovering my heritage and learning
things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that
question of ‘Where do I belong?’” At the same time, Dobson restored the
sense of possibility she felt in first embarking on her music career,
which included landing a deal at Atlantic Records at the age of 19. “I
think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the
expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost
confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much
larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”
With
the release of Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might
reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially
right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I
want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to
feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall
apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work
through everything on their own. Because the point is that the
impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s
impossible.”

Event Venue

2501 Kettner Blvd San Diego CA 92101, San Diego, United States

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