Jessica Boudreaux – The Faster I Run
Today former Summer Cannibals leader, Jessica Boudreaux, announces her new solo album The Faster I Run along with a video for her new single “Back Then”.
The Faster I Run arrives on July 19 via Pet Club.
Boudreaux wrote, performed, produced and recorded The Faster I Run at her own Pet Club Studio. Ricardo Lagamasino (Lucy Dacus, Mal Blum) contributed drums from afar. The album was mixed by Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Algernon Cadwallader) at Headroom Recording Studios and mastered by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Mastering.
When the beloved indie rock band Summer Cannibals disbanded in March 2023, frontwoman Jessica Boudreaux had no intentions of launching a solo career. After 10 years leading the Portland-based project, Boudreaux was eager to work on music beyond the band. The forced isolation of the pandemic meant more time in the studio, where she wrote songs for film and television including Oscar-nominated Nimona and Apple Tv’s City on Fire. As conditions improved, Boudreaux built out her own studio, Pet Club, and a small house for bands to stay in while she produced their records.
But Boudreaux knows better than most that life is full of curveballs. In November 2020, Boudreaux was diagnosed with breast cancer and thrust into a maze of medical appointments and chemotherapy. Though Boudreaux was in remission by the summer of 2023, she was still dealing with the physical and emotional fallout, leading her to embark on a transformative weeklong whitewater kayaking excursion with fellow young adult cancer survivors. To her own surprise, Boudreaux returned from the trip with a “renewed excitement about life and expression,” she says. “There was a fire under my ass, and then I kind of accidentally wrote an album.”
That record is The Faster I Run, 12 taut and perceptive rock songs that burrow into your heart with casual virtuosity. Self-produced and recorded, this richly melodic solo debut is an invigorating testament to growth and the therapeutic power of art-making. “I know a lot more about myself now than I did when I was with Summer Cannibals and it was exciting to write because I suddenly have access to all these different parts of myself that I didn’t before,” Boudreaux says. “Every song was a necessary part of healing, it’s genuinely the most that I have leaned on music to work through things. The whole record reflects on my past through an entirely new lens.”
From the first track, the album reconsiders old wounds with fresh eyes. On the openhearted anthem “Back Then,” Boudreaux pays tribute to a late friend while lamenting her younger self’s mistakes and miscommunications. Later, the song’s spiritual sister “Cut and Run” trades regrets for a wistful celebration of youthful abandon, days driving through her native southern Louisiana with the windows down and nights spent smoking joints on rooftops.
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