{"id":35399,"date":"2020-08-12T11:15:32","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T15:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=35399"},"modified":"2020-12-11T14:52:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T19:52:58","slug":"interview-jess-cornelius-distance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/interview-jess-cornelius-distance\/","title":{"rendered":"Jess Cornelius Reconciles the Life She’d Planned with a New Reality on Distance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: Rachael Pony Cassells<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Jess Cornelius upended her former musical project Teeth & Tongue and moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles, she had decided her life was going to be a certain way – but, as it so often does, life had other plans. Though Teeth & Tongue began as a solo project, it had expanded to include other members in a way that complicated not only touring outside of Australia, but the songwriting process as well. So Cornelius started writing stripped down acoustic songs, releasing a succinct, pretty EP in 2017 called Nothing is Lost<\/em><\/a> that allowed her to tour the States in support of Australian folk singer Paul Kelly (and helped hasten the process of getting an artist visa). “I moved to the states when I was like 36, and was like, I\u2019m clearly not gonna be settling down anytime soon,” she says. “I wanted to be touring a lot so I made these decisions, but there was definitely a lot of questioning, like, [knowing] I probably wouldn\u2019t end up having a family because of the decisions that I’ve made, and I was happy with that.”<\/p>\n

In LA, Cornelius haunted clubs like Zebulon and The Bootleg, connecting with other musicians easily but continuing to write songs rooted in a feeling of disconnect and indifference – from recounting a one night stand to calling an old flame long distance, songs that measured her California dreamin’ against the reality of her day to day. Then, her lovelife took a turn when she became pregnant three months into a new relationship, rearranged her entire life to accommodate the baby, and suffered a miscarriage, writing the lyrics “My body has a memory and it won’t forget\/But I was my own woman once\/And I was sure I was enough,” in the aftermath. “The song ‘Body Memory’\u00a0 \u2013 I say it\u2019s about a miscarriage but it\u2019s not really about that so much as what happened afterwards and how my attitude toward everything changed, and myself and my relationship and what I wanted for the future,” she says. “I came here to do all this touring and to be a musician, not to be a mother and a housewife. In my fears, I was not gonna be able to have this creative life. I think a huge part of it was this idea that I would be so dependent on a man, like alright, this is a really vulnerable place to be, just by the nature of having a kid with someone. But we\u2019d decided to have it and it was very exciting but also very scary, and then ten weeks in, it was all over.”<\/p>\n

In the months that followed, Cornelius put the pieces together of what would become her first full-length LP under her own name. Distance<\/em>, released at the end of July, brilliantly collects the experiences Cornelius had as she moved halfway around the world, searched for both romantic and creative fulfillment in the City of Angels, pondered getting older and mused on her ability to let it all go, and the dramatic shift in her perspective as she reconsidered motherhood. The album also collects a brilliant array of Los Angeles talent that Cornelius assembled both organically and via her label Loantaka Records<\/a>, including Mary Lattimore, who plays harp on “Born Again,” drummers Stella Mozgawa (of Warpaint), Mary Lattimore, Jesse Quebbeman-Turley (of Hand Habits), and Robbie Sinclair, guest bassists Emily Elhaj and Stephanie Drootin (who have played with Angel Olsen and Bright Eyes respectively), an array of back up vocalists Cornelius calls friends, and even a whistler (Molly Lewis).<\/p>\n