music: Jessie Evans on her new album, Is It Fire?

Jessie Evans last spoke to us two years ago in a wonderful interview that talked of her background and travels. This time we asked her about her new album - what's it about? And the unreasonable question - how come it took so long? Below is her answer.
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Is it fire? - This is like the first prayer at the beginning of a journey, the first question that a child would ask when they realize that what is brightest and calling to them could also destroy them. That your maker is also your destroyer. The world is organic and eats itself, it's a process that happens circular over and over since the beginning of time. I’m searching for an answer in my question. Right now I’ve painted a portrait of my desires, that's what this record is about. It's different from stuff I've done in the past because it's more deliberate and stripped down. Sometimes it takes a really long time to just arrive at a few words, you have to clear all the junk away to see what's left.

We traveled between Berlin to Mexico to make this record. It took about two years to complete from beginning to finish. Mexico represents a beginning, and a return to a where things came from. The Toltec, the Aztecs, they worshiped the sun, they believed the gods walked among them. In modern times people think that they are above everything,- the highest on the chain, above animals, gods have become either a religious obsession, a dream, or obsolete. I feel this emptiness, a void which is caused by this ego feeling, that we are all independent...what does it mean? Last year we went to Salvador Dali’s house on my birthday. It was the first time being inside his house, since a teenager, when I was just stomping around the edges, staying on a squatted island down the street, but not having any money to go inside. It was incredible to see him and Gala’s place, to see that humans could create a life out of their imagination, a fantastic beautiful world, and they were living as human gods.. The same feeling came also from visiting Josephine Baker's Château des Milandes, where she lived for many years in France with her Husband and family. To see that this girl who came from St. Louis and danced her way out of poverty, to become this treasured creature in France, and living in a castle! The power of dreams is immense and it gives so  much hope. This is this feeling which I wanted to project into this music. I wanted to create something which was my own, my own island, to shout from, and shake in the sun!

Jessie Evans

photo: Billy und Hells