New York based indie alt-folk singer songwriter Amy Jay's songs are like plastic knives — pliable, yet cutting. Throughout the 10 songs on her new album, Mnemonics, Jay proves she knows how to wield them tenaciously.

Titled to represent the mnemonic devices she birthed while “writing my inner monologue” during and outside of therapy sessions, these little mantras help Jay with the work-in-progress of the human condition. Struggling to find her place in the city's messy music scene (iykyk) over the last few years, she found herself slipping into bad habits and decided to take control of everything she could — herself.

 

Throughout Mnemonics, Jay explores what makes the vulnerable acceptable, as well as the Joycean concept of what makes the universal specific: How do you love yourself when you don't feel likable? How do you face pieces of your hidden self courageously? How do you hold space for negative thought patterns or feelings of embarrassment, insecurity, loneliness, or anxiety?

 

While such themes are often still stigmatized, through song, they become softer and more palatable. Jay assembled a crew of stellar local musicians with national track records to help take her sketches of folk songs into fully formed indie rock panoramas. With long-time producer/engineer Jon Seale (Mason Jar Music) at the helm and guitarist Sam Skinner (Pinegrove, Fenne Lily), keyboardist Andrew Freedman (Michael Mayo, Ryan Beatty), Jay also enlisted bassists Jeremy McDonald and Margaux (Katy Kirby) and drummers Jason Burger (Big Thief) and Jordan Rose (Maggie Rogers) to round out her sound.

 

Mnemonics takes such hefty internal work and translates everything into ear-pricking songs that alternatingly float, stun, and comfort. And with Jay's sly observations and embrace of nervous laughter in awkward situations, she infuses a sense of levity in the album. The architecture of her songwriting, varied in length, tone, and dynamic, stands out, but it's Jay's voice that's the connecting tissue. In songs like “Margins” and “Excuse Me,” her vibrato carries emotional insecurity and staunch vocal control simultaneously. On “Move On” and “Floral Comfort,” her whispering conveys the embarrassment that can often overlap with personal growth, while the band swells to cast spells of confidence that belie such fear.

 

For as much as Mnemonics is a vision board of a record, cut and colored with pages of the past, it's also rooted in the present. Any attempt at self-improvement or self-actualization takes time, and the culture finally seems ready to embrace such efforts. “This whole album makes me feel uncomfortable, but I'm just gonna go with it. It's important for me to face the discomfort in order to overcome it,” says Jay. “The more I share these sentiments with others, the deeper it seems to resonate. It's clear these feelings are not just mine. They come with adulthood and they're universal.”

 

Jay, whose music has more than 1 million streams, has been playlisted on both Spotify and Apple Music, and has been synced internationally, still keeps the mantras of Mnemonics close to her heart. They're as much guideposts for herself as she hopes they'll be for others.

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