![]() ![]() “Whenever I started feeling like I was up against a wall and not getting anywhere, if I felt a block, I’d put the guitar down and just ended up -to clear my head -I would play his instruments,” she says. At the time she was working on the score, Van Etten says she shared a practice space with actor Michael Cera, who had a fairly robust collection of synthesizers, keyboards, and organs. Her first gig was writing a score for director Katherine Dieckmann and her independent film, Strange Weather. As she began taking classes to get a degree in psychology, she next began brainstorming potential avenues of incomes for her new stationary lifestyle. The first thing Van Etten decided to do was go back to school. I wanted to enjoy what New York had to offer, pay attention to my relationships, and figure out what that is and what it means and what my place is here.” And so I just realized that I just wanted to be home. Some of the friends stay and understand, and others, it’s just hard to maintain. You come back after being gone for a month or two or more and life moves on without you. It’s hard as a daughter, a sister, and for my friends. I know it sounds so childish to say, but I was in my 30s and I was like, ‘I don’t wanna go anywhere.’ is hard. “For the first time I was in a really stable relationship. “I wanted to focus on my life,” she says. The development of Reminder Me Tomorrow arguably began in 2015 when Van Etten decided to stop touring not long after the release of Are We There. He’s also really into his dad’s skateboard.”īecoming a parent has been but a part of the numerous life-altering opportunities and roles Van Etten has taken in the intervening years since releasing her 2014 LP Are We There, but there’s no mistaking its influence on Van Etten’s newest record, Remind Me Tomorrow, an album that successfully captures her parental existentialism, her insecurity in the face of true love, and her memories of who she used to be, sentiments all beautifully frayed by an eclipsing darkness of synthesizers, drones, and machinery. “He’s in the phase where he can follow directions really well, he understands everything we’re saying, but he’s just climbing on everything. Midway through our conversation Van Etten will stake out a hiding position on the deck as her partner, and former drummer-turned-manager Zeke Hutchins arrives home, bringing their son for his scheduled nap. Everything about having a kid is just -you’ve just got to roll with it and what makes him happy and ask, ‘How can we all thrive?’ And apparently we thrive in chaos.” And as soon as they start overflowing then we’re just going to start giving stuff away.’ And they’re just all over the place. We’ve got one of those nice woven baskets and we were like, ‘Toys have to fit in this. “In the final days of my pregnancy we were like, ‘Okay when people come into the apartment you’re not going to know that we have a kid as soon as you walk in the door,’” recalls Van Etten. And while she’ll say that one of the things that she loves most about her home is its deck -offering the all too rare urban experience of outdoor privacy -the most predominant feature of Van Etten’s residence are the scattered, ever-present artifacts of her 19-month son. Van Etten has moved around a bit in the 15 years she’s lived in New York City, but her current place she’s managed to hold onto for some time. Reassuring me she was expecting my call and that she’s already said her goodbyes, it takes only a few minutes before she’s in the far less distracting space of her Brooklyn apartment, located a literal block away from the restaurant. It’s a Sunday, and the New York singer/songwriter has just excused herself from an impromptu brunch, having bumped into some friends earlier that morning. Just seconds after answering her phone Sharon Van Etten is already apologizing to me.
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