Settling Into Your Own Skin, Speaking In Your Own Tongue with Jen Cloher

Now this is a chat that is simply not long enough! Jen Cloher easefully extends into all the parts of life that make my heart sing, sometimes that song is sad, tender or joyful but meaningful conversation for me feels like growth and this chat has it in spades.

It was perhaps 15 years ago or more that I first met Jen Cloher, somewhere on  my triple j timeline and I remember even then being captivated by this person who I perceived to be almost delicate, elfin-like yet who exuded a strength that was coming from somewhere deeper than just their own two feet. To speak with Jen now as they move into the stateliness of being an empowered human heading toward fifty is an honour and a pleasure. Jen has this year released their fifth album and to describe it, I don’t want to fumble with my own explanation but instead use these beautifully crafted words from Jen’s website:

'I Am The River, The River Is Me, Cloher’s fifth album, is verdant and rich; it luxuriates in stillness, and carries itself with cool, unfussy confidence. It suggests that home is not found in a place or a politic, but in the community you keep: Inspired by Cloher’s powerful matrilineal line of wāhine Māori, I Am The River, The River Is Me is not urgent, or hurried, but it is vital, made with the care and ease of someone who knows that their past began before birth, and will continue long after they’re gone.'
 
Make a cup of tea for this one, soften your chest and open the windows of your mind because a chat with Jen Cloher is a balm for the soul.