Jazz dreams finds its pocket in these rich moments before the future starts to happen. “I could come up to your place,” she purrs on “I Could” before a chainsaw of an oscillating tele chord slices through the tension, flirting with the implications of what’s next better than a pan to curtains ever has. On the rockabilly strummer “Get in,” we catch her in Sheryl Crow mode just before she drives off into L.A. traffic, or maybe hops the plane home; that’s for her to know and us to wonder. The lighters-up love song “Everything in the shade,” which would’ve fit right in on Honeymoon, carries the thread from the other end of a romance, noting: “After all that we’ve been through, I’m looking forward to see you.”
Jensen has the vocal equivalent of a familiar face, which for another performer could become a disadvantage. She fashions it into a strength by flexing into unexplored territory that never reveals its stretch. The alternating 5/4 and 11/4 measures on “Million years” have shades of a Jack DeJohnette or Dave Holland joint, but slots in seamlessly after the twilit art rock of “Any minute.” Opener “The thing” is a grand piano trot punctuated with snaps and a staircase baritone guitar, where she portrays an enigmatic figure with more than a passing resemblance to Linda McCartney, posted at the corner of the scene and not “looking for anyone specific—just looking around.” The odd flute flourish and chime strike land like blips in her roving gaze: It matters less who or what she saw, then that she settled on it at all.
Transcend the realm of first thought, best thought, liberate yourself from the confines of don’t overthink it, and you might just achieve the happy tranquility of “Goodbye brain.” Spreading an ultra-buttery bassline over a jangle-pop groove, she sings the praises of lights on, no one home. “I had just one impression: good, babe,” she sighs, instantly earning the envy of anyone who has ever awoken in the middle of the night worried they forgot to turn off the oven or sounded weird in an email. “I’m so hollow, I’m full of dreams,” Jensen sings, so convincingly content you might wonder if the “glass half empty” adage got it all backwards. Jensen is a fan of the post-modernist Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector, and it’s plain to see how a writer whose magnum opus Água Viva was originally titled Beyond Thought piqued her interest. (Lispector gets a more direct shoutout on the lullaby-like closing track “Much to say,” when Jensen reminds her ever-present “babe,” “Beyond thought, there are no words.”)
