Northampton singer/songwriter Esperanza Friel creates and performs under the name Lady Jane, whose online bio has a mythical tinge: “In her tiny bedroom in her small hometown, she writes songs of loss and love and the small beautiful victories in between.”
For many years, Friel has recorded unadorned songs at home — just a guitar and her pure, potent voice — and released them onto the internet, often one at a time, like hushed messages in bottles. Her Bandcamp page contains 48 of those recordings, mostly originals (like the beautiful “Higher Ground” and haunting “Survival”) but also covers of songs by Tom Rush, Mirah, Big Thief, Bruce Springsteen and others.
Lady Jane’s latest collection is a seven-track EP called “Soft Waltz,” her first music recorded in the outside world. She’ll feature some of the songs at her next local show, at Iconica Social Club in Northampton on Friday, May 10, at 7 p.m., appearing on a bill with Ben Wetherbee and Glenn Echo.
Friel got her performing name by a bolt from the blue. One night long ago at an open mic, unsure what to put down on the sign-up sheet besides her own name, she found herself humming the Rolling Stones song “Lady Jane” and thought that worked just fine.
Years of open mic muscle-building have made Friel a powerful performer. A recent example is a solo acoustic performance of the song “Saving Grace,” filmed at Sleeper Cave Records, the scenic Williamsburg studio where the new EP was recorded with engineer Andy Cass back in November.
On the song, she cradles a nylon string guitar (no strap needed), singing a tale of a house full of walls, fingerpicking a pulse that morphs into waltz time on the chorus. “And the choirboys / they sing to me,” she sings into the quiet room, a gentle strength and timelessness in her voice.
Friel is the kind of artist who doesn’t exactly need extra instruments around, so the core of the new EP is still voice and guitar. But she and Cass add some different textures, like a hip-shaking drumbeat and insistent bass on “Lightning” and the subliminal thrum of a harmonium on “Ghosts.” And on “The Car,” the guitar is replaced by a shivering Rhodes electric piano, its tines as bright as bells.
Clubland spoke with Lady Jane earlier this week.
Clubland: What inspired you to expand the instrumental palette on the new EP?
Lady Jane: I felt very comfortable with just my guitar and vocals, but had a deep desire to branch out and get out of my comfort zone. The album wanted a fuller sound, so that’s what I ended up giving it. Andy and I spent many, many hours together [at Sleeper Cave]. The studio is in a beautiful old mill building by a river and is full of all kinds of instruments. I felt like a kid in a candy store!
The process of making “Soft Waltz” was a lot less lonely than my EPs. When I would get stuck or tired, Andy would cheer me on from the booth. When I wanted something to fill out a track, Andy and I would try things together and add piano or bass and see how it sounded. It felt like a team effort.
Clubland: Before you recorded the EP, you wrote online, “This album is probably going to be the most honest piece of work I have ever made.”
Lady Jane: I still feel that way. Every single track holds the truth in it. These past two years have been a whirlwind — I decided to take time off from graduate school to pursue music more seriously, and ended a serious relationship as well — and it felt important for me to capture that feeling and the honesty of that chaos. The recording process was very cathartic and emotional and important.
Clubland: What made you first start writing songs years ago?
Lady Jane: I think I always wanted to be a songwriter. But when I first started playing guitar when I was fifteen, I was trying way too hard. I would write down poetic lyrics and then try for hours to put a melody to them. I just hadn’t found my process yet. And then when I stopped trying and just kind of let the songs come to me, I suddenly couldn’t stop writing.
I think the first song I felt most strongly about was “The Car.” I wrote it when I was twenty and it made its way to “Soft Waltz” — and I am really excited and happy that it did. It was the first song I wrote that made me really feel something about it.
Clubland: What are your thoughts on singing? Are you the kind of person who hums or sings throughout a day, maybe making up melodies, or do you need to first get into the right space to sing, or write?
Lady Jane: I love singing. I sing everywhere. In the car and in the shower. It’s very close to talking for me. Melodies come to me everywhere. I write constantly. The songs are always there. And when they find me, I stop what I am doing and record them on my phone. I try to capture them in the purest state I can.
So much of what I write is from me but also not from me. I sometimes feel like it’s sent to me from somewhere else and I am just the radio. But they feel like they are meant for me. That we are meant for each other.
Clubland: What’s next, now that the EP is out? What are you looking forward to in 2019?
Lady Jane: Andy and I are talking a bigger album. Even more of a full sound. Not sure when it will be out in the world but it’s being talked about for sure. I have many shows lined up on the horizon and I am excited about it all, honestly. 2019 feels like home. Like I finally arrived.
Contact Ken Maiuri at clublandcolumn@gmail.com.