Kaiti Jones’s Sophomore LP ‘Tossed’ out today

FRIDAY, MARCH 5 — Boston-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kaiti Jones has released her sophomore LP, Tossed, which is streaming everywhere today and available for purchase via Bandcamp. Jones will celebrate the new album with a live stream from Club Passim in Cambridge, MA tonight at 8pm EST.

Produced and engineered by Future Teens’ Daniel Radin, the 9-track set is a sublime bridge of folk and indie rock following her 2017 debut, Vows, which KUTX says “drew affectionate comparisons to the flawed, human rock of Sharon Van Etten and Julia Jacklin.” Jones’s songs are rooted in existential angst or failed romances that grew into retrospective anecdotes, some evolving over years as she carefully crafted each lyric and fleshed out the story she wanted to tell. Vanyaland explains, “Tossed captures a hundred opposing sentiments with a diary-like approach to lyricism,” going on to note that “the album shares a soulful gateway to folk music for unsuspecting but staunch pop-rock lovers.” WBUR’s The ARTery adds, “Jones relates her story in plain language. With each verse, she describes a new scene, and with each scene, finds the poignance in some ordinary observation…This is Jones’ gift as a songwriter: to find the metaphor in the mundane, the drama in the everyday.”

A notorious daydreamer, Jones has learned to harness the time spent inside her own head into a creative power, and on the meandering ballad “Daydreaming,” she plays her mind’s divergent tendencies with surprising twists. “I’m sorry I did not answer your question / I was busy writing my eulogy,” she sings with ease on the opening line. It’s provocative and maybe a bit morbid, but it’s this dark, tongue-in-cheek humor that allows Jones to survey the duality of the human mind throughout much of her songwriting. American Songwriter states, “By reclaiming her story, Jones created a song that is strikingly sensible and occasionally humorous” with “a natural, but well-polished soundscape.”

Jones had the chorus for album standout “Gettin Around To It” on her mind for years before the full song finally came together after an impromptu co-writing session with singer/songwriter David Ramirez. Audiofemme praised the song’s “buoyant indie rock sound” and Jones’s “rich vocals and genuine, tender delivery reminiscent of Phoebe Bridgers or Julia Jacklin,” and WGBH calls it “lush, Tom Petty-esque rock” that’s “urgent, tightly-written, and a little off-kilter.” The Wild Honey Pie adds, “There are many things we should be gettin’ around to, and listening to Kaiti Jones should be on top of that list.”

Jones initially teased the forthcoming new album with lead single “Weak Days” premiering on Apple Music Radio’s Southern Craft show and included on NPR’s New Music Friday playlist. Glide Magazine lauds, “Boosted by warm electric instrumentation and effortless vocal delivery, Jones has a way with undemanding lyrical and melodic playfulness with a sharp tone reminiscent of Aimee Mann and Heartless Bastards.”

Tossed is a collection of songs written during a variety of phases in Jones’s life and recorded between December 2019 and May 2020 at Radin’s home studio in Watertown, MA. Her ability to save bits of lyrics for years until they manifest in their finished form demonstrates a steadfastness to her inspired instincts. She doesn’t force an intention or agenda in her songs, which, in turn, is why her music feels so refreshingly unhurried. These nine tracks are intimate and sown with personal details, without drawing to some grand, trite conclusion. “As I’ve gotten older, I feel like I have more and more questions and fewer answers, and I’ve just learned to be okay with that,” she divulges.

Jones has immersed herself in music since she was a small child and her curiosity and hunger led her to study the violin, viola, piano, guitar, french horn, and cello. “I started writing songs as a way to basically bare my soul, but with the cover of ‘well, you don’t know if this is really about me,” she explains. Her parents met at a Christian hippie commune in the ’60s, and growing up, community and music were significant aspects of her life. Jones first began publishing her music in 2009, and after studying philosophy and writing in college, she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to do service work as an AmeriCorps volunteer. She completed her master’s at Boston College in social work, as well as released her folk-leaning debut LP Vows, in 2017. She now works in community engagement and youth development while continuing to write and record new music.