When Cassandra Jenkins thinks about the energy and intention that behind her breakout record, 2021's An Overview Of Phenomenal Nature, she sees it as a work where she was trying to say: "'Sayonara, I'm out!'"

Having grown up as the daughter of musicians and performed since her childhood, Jenkins had spent a life on stage. But trying to make it as a solo act —after having spent time in the backing bands of Eleanor Friedberger and Craig Finn— had left her feeling stressed, unsatisfied and tired.

So, she saw her second album as a swansong; a parting gift for her career.

"I was really trying to leave the life that I was living, to move into a different career entirely," the 40-year-old recounts, in conversation with Anthony Carew on The International Pop Underground.

"I was really burnt out on touring, and I had gone through a lot of shifts in my life and I thought: 'I'm always going to make music, but I don't necessarily have to do this for a living, it's causing me so much pain.'"

Instead, the album was a huge critical hit —it came in at #2 on the International Pop Underground's Best-Albums-of-2021 countdown, a true honour— and Jenkins was drawn deeper into the career she thought she left behind.

In authoring her third album, the newly-issued My Light, My Destroyer, Jenkins almost felt like she was returning to a job she'd tried to walk out of.

"Going into the process of making a record after quitting is even more hilarious," she says. "Imagine going into your office after having a dramatic exit. That's how I felt approaching my own work."

Feeling the pressure of following up a success and facing up to "a lot of those things [she] was tempted to leave behind," the new set finds Jenkins interrogating her expectations of, and experiences in, her music career.

"I was asking myself where this is leading, and the answer is I really don't know," Jenkins offers.

"There's a lot of uncertainty. And I'm grappling with that, and accepting that this path is something that I'm so drawn to. That I've tried to quit and I just can't. Because I love it. I'm willing to go to many lengths to be able to do what I do."

Feature image: Pooneh Ghana