Promise

2016 release from performer, producer, singer, and composer known for her varied use of classical and modern instrumentation as well as her deft approach to live sampling. Classically trained as a violinist, she also performs using drums, guitars, keys, and beat machines. Wells has described the LP as "a soul record in baroque clothing... a pauper's opera." Expanding upon the idea, she says in a lengthy press statement: "These finished recordings and their live counterparts take their time - and in doing so ask for a bit of grace. I returned often to an interview I'd watched with the light artist James Turrell where he says, '... not everyone will sit in a darkened room for ten minutes before they begin to see.' This idea allowed me be patient with the work, both in process and outcome. When writing, when recording, there is a period where everything is in service of the song, if at times unconsciously. As the song begins to take form, however, it's role shifts: the song is in service of the life it feeds. How then to convey a malleable 'you', interchangeable with the self, with the friend, with the lover, with the listener, the future?"