(New York, NY) After more than a decade away from music, acclaimed singer-songwriter, Jennie Arnau, is poised to make her return with a collection of songs about loss, resilience, and re-discovery. Blending grassroots rock, alt-country, and poetic Americana shaped by her Southern roots and New York edge, Arnau was a fixture on festival stages and at renowned venues surrounding her last release, 2009’s Chasing Giants. Faced with her mother’s dementia diagnosis, Arnau made the difficult decision to step away from music to care for her mother, and then to care for herself after her mother’s death.
The first release of the songs born during Arnau’s time out of the spotlight, “Back To Carolina,” reflects her internal struggle of deciding what to do - as well as how and where to do it - as her mother grew ill.
“When you find yourself so far from someone you love and they are dying, you want to be with them- you want to watch over them even though you know that watching over them can’t and won’t help them,” Arnau says. “I’ve lived in New York City for years and years, ever since college, and I love it here, but when my mother started to decline, I was trying to figure it all out. South Carolina has always been my hometown; it’s in my bones and woven into who I am, and my mother is the fabric of my life, literally my lifeblood, so I was struggling to decide what to do. I didn’t want to leave my world up here, but I just worried constantly about her.”
With the support of loved ones, especially her girlfriend (now wife), Arnau made the decision to stay in NY, and fly back and forth to be with her mother as much as possible. She continued to write to process her anger and impenetrable sadness, and eventually, at the urging of friends and collaborators, she found herself ready to head back into the studio.
