The Good in Anything - A Year Spent With Josaleigh Pollett's In The Garden, By The Weeds

It’s not easy—but it is not forever

“I’m running out of real estate,” is what I have said, in the past, when I find myself talking about my tattoos. Real estate on my arms, specifically, because that is where all but one of my tattoos are located—I have this thing, that, if I am going to spend the time and money, and put myself through the temporary pain or discomfort that comes along with the process of getting tattooed, I wish for them to be in a place, on my person, where they are easy for me to see, and not, like, something that I more often than not, forget about, and am surprised by the sight of when I catch it out of the corner of my eye in the shower, or when dressing for the day.

The problem, though, with having so many visible tattoos, is that it opens you up to conversations you, perhaps, may not wish to have about them—what they are of, because the more specific, or idiosyncratic they are, the harder they become to try and explain with any clarity or articulation.

Or, worse—someone will want to know what they “mean.”

Something I learned the last time I was getting a tattoo—well, really, the last time I was getting a tattoo, and the time before that, when I was getting something touched up, is that a lot of artists—not all of them, certainly, but a lot of them, I think, just do not really like tattooing text.

And this is something that, perhaps, I already knew, deep down, based on my own experiences getting text—sometimes a lot of text—tattooed on my right arm, for example; or this is something I could have, perhaps, surmised. And. I mean. To the extent that I am able to. I understand. Or at least respect this preference.

Tattooing, itself, as an art, to me anyway, seems incredibly complicated to learn and stressful to do. The kind of craft, or line of work, or whatever you wish to call it, where there is no room for error at all. And maybe I am just speculating here, but, with the artists who would rather not tattoo a lot of text onto somebody’s body, the dislike for that specifically could come from any number of places, certainly. 

And I feel like one of those places might be from the sheer amount of fine lines, or minutiae, that comes along with it—and, I mean, there is certainly minutiae and fine line work that goes into a lot of tattoos, regardless of what they are of. 

But with text, there are just more lines, overall. Thin lines. That require, probably, a certain amount of patience and concentration and dexterity not only to accomplish, but to enjoy the process of doing.

I’m running out of real estate, I think to myself, when I look at my arms—my arms, as they dangle on the sides of my body, or in front of me, when they are outstretched, and I look at what spaces remain open, or available, and what could potentially be placed there if I were so moved, or inspired.

And, I mean, the problem, though, with having so many visible tattoos—at least the problem I have had, though it happens less now than it did prior, is that it can open you up to conversations that you perhaps may not wish to have about them. Like what they are of. 

Or worse—what they “mean.”

And even though there is a fair share of tattoo artists out in the world who do not enjoy doing large amounts of text, I, during the course of the last decade and change, have found artists who, perhaps begrudgingly, will do it. And the problem, though, with having so many visible tattoos—some of which involve large amounts of text, taking up substantial portions of my right arm, is that it opens me up to conversations that I do not wish to have. About what my arm says.

And worse—what it “means.”

I’m running out of real estate, on my arms, specifically. My right arm more so than my left. And with the swaths of my skin that do remain unspoken for, I often find myself wondering what I could, if I was so moved, or inspired, place there. 

For about two years now, I have considered getting the repeated line from the Camp Cope song, “Sing Your Heart Out”—“If you can change, so can I,” someplace where there might be enough room to successfully accommodate it. But. At some point, a few months go, I came to understand there was a phrase much more resonant, and personal, and urgent, that I would commemorate if I could find a willing artist, and decide the best location for placement. 

The problem, though, with having so many visible tattoos, some of which involve large amounts of text, is that it opens me up to conversations I do not wish to have about what they say. 

And worse—what it “means.”

It’s not easy—but it is not forever.

*

And over the last five or six years, in thinking about how I write about music—like, the process that I use nearly every time, I am uncertain when I picked up this habit, or convinced myself that it was, like, almost the only way I could write about something authentically, or really “experience” the album I am choosing to “sit down with,” but there came a point where I believed that, in order to immerse myself in the world of the album completely, and write with the honesty I wished to, I needed to have a physical copy of the album present, and playing on my stereo while.

The physical media— a vinyl LP, or even a CD—certainly helps when it comes time to promote whatever it is I have written on social media outlets, because I can take some kind of charming photograph of myself, holding the album in question, sitting next to my dog who often does not wish to be involved in what I am doing. The physical media also helps because, yes, I understand the relative ease of listening through headphones on your preferred streaming service, on a phone or your laptop, or from mp3s you have downloaded or purchased, but I do not always want to be tethered to the computer, or to my phone, in that way. 

I recognize that this makes me pretentious, and I would agree, honestly, if you were to feel that way, but for me, as a listener, and as one who analyzes music, perhaps more than I should, there is something impersonal about listening online, and only online. The familiar act of putting a CD in the tray, or of getting up to flip the record over to its second side are not acts of convenience, certainly, but they are acts that I enjoy. They are a part of the “experience,” for me, as an analytical listener.

This apparent need that I have, to own copies of things, does create problems and at times, barriers.

The financial element, of course, is the most obvious problem, and has, most definitely, caused a lot of connection within my home—there was a period of time, near the end of 2021, and well into the first half of 2022, where I was trying as hard as I was able, not to buy any LPs. It was not easy, and maybe once a month, I would make a concession for one, or two, and those concessions were things that I really had to debate with myself about if I truly needed them—and needed to really spend the money, and bring more stuff into my home.

And, I mean, writing about an album that I have not purchased a physical copy of is not impossible—I have done it. I will more than likely continue to do it, for myriad reasons. It’s not impossible by any means, but it also is not as fun, in a sense, and it certainly presents more of a challenge, at times, in the early stages of analysis and developing what I am going to write, and how I am going to find my way into the album.

I recognize that this makes me pretentious. And I tell you all of that to tell you this. 

And I find that I have said this often—even somewhat recently, in what I write, but because I find out about a lot of artists, or albums, that I listen to , and do ultimately enjoy and wish to write about, from the internet, my wish some of the time is that the internet would not move as quickly. Or, if anything, I moved a little faster and could keep up with it better.

And I find I have said this often because, when I attempt to recall how I heard about an artist, or an album, my assumption is that I did, in fact, hear about them through the internet. But where. And from whomst. 

And I tell you all of that to tell you this. That I would have been introduced to the Salt Lake City, Utah-based singer and songwriter Josaleigh Pollett nearly a year ago, shortly before the release of their fourth full-length, In The Garden, By The Weeds. And, if you were to ask how I had heard about the album, which served as my introduction to Pollett’s work, I hesitate slightly, but I want to say that it would have, more than likely, been from how I have been introduced to a lot of new (to me) artists—from Curtis Reeves Jr’s Twitter account.

I tell you all of that to tell you this—the release of In The Garden, By The Weeds was similar to the release of a number of other albums from extremely independent artists, meaning that it was available to stream, or download, well before it exists in a physical form. Originally arriving July of 2023, there was a three or four month delay before the album was available on vinyl. 

And I was drawn to In The Garden, certainly, listening to it last summer, and I am confident giving it consideration as an album I wished to “sit down with” and write about, but I tell you all of that to tell you this—something that, I think, has been somewhat well documented when I do break the fourth wall to address you, the reader, directly and say that for every album I do end up writing something about, there are countless other albums I would love to spend that amount of time with, and put that much thought into my analysis of, but, for so many reasons, am simply not able to.

And I recognize that this is pretentious, but the three to four-month delay in the vinyl edition of In The Garden being available did, also, at the time, create a barrier for me, in terms of it being an album that I felt I could really give my attention to in the way that I wished to.

As a person—like a horribly flawed human being who barely makes it through some days on earth, I make mistakes. And as a music writer, I have certainly grown, and evolved, in how I write, and what I write about, over the last 11 years, but I make mistakes—often lauding something with praise that I later regret my decision to do so, or inevitably making a difficult choice over what to, and what I am not able to, write about.

It was, of course, a mistake not to dedicate the time to writing about The Rise and Fall of A Midwest Princess, the debut full-length from Chappell Roan when it arrived in September last year—I tried to make up for it with a lengthier analysis of it when it was included as one of my favorite records of 2023. 

It was, of course, a mistake, and an oversight, not to find the time, either in the summer months after its original release, or even finding a way to write about it after the LP arrived at my home.

And I did try, as I could, in the flurry of end of the year writing about music that I subject myself to every November and December, give Pollett their flowers by writing a short blur about In The Garden, In The Weeds, as part of the “Best Albums of 2023” list complied by the writers who contribute content to Atwood Magazine. 

Pollett, as a singer and songwriter, and In The Garden, though, both deserve more than a blurb, because it is one of the albums, released last year, that I have found myself spending the most time with, simply because of the way it revealed itself to resonate with me on an emotional, extraordinarily personal level. 

*

In The Garden, By The Weeds is, certainly, a fine starting point if you are, as I was, new to the music of Josaleigh Pollett—mostly because it is a culmination of both growth and influence, and for as inward of an album as it is, thematically, the songs themselves are rarely, if ever, inaccessible to the listener. There are even moments, the further we are pulled in, where it can be an optimistic or jubilant-sounding collection. 

Pollett wrote and recorded the album, over roughly a year, in close collaboration with their friend Jordan Watko—the two of them seamlessly blending vast, often glitchy or jittery electronic textures, with the introspection and tenderness of Pollett’s voice and the steady and subtle and at times skeletal inclusion of both the electric and acoustic guitar. 

And I say that it is a culmination for Pollett, in terms of growth and influence, because with regards to the arranging and instrumentation, they’ve continued to push themself, and their sound, further, and deeper into more genuinely interesting places, with each record they have released—so it is fascinating, and ultimately rewarding, as a listener now, to work my way backward.

I am hesitant to use the expression “humble beginnings” to describe Pollett’s earliest material—specifically when talking about Strangers, the album referred to as their debut, released in 2017, because describing it as humble seemingly sells it short. Firmly planted in a very acoustic, folksy, at times, country and western-leaning sound, Pollett’s lyricism throughout Strangers is already very well-developed—thoughtful and poignant, and it has only continued to flourish in how they effortlessly weave personal observations with evocative imagery and phrasing.

But there is the rather noticeable growth, and the shift in influence, or rather, musical direction, that occurred over the space of the six years between Strangers, and the release of In The Garden.

I am also hesitant to say that Pollett’s 2020 release No Woman is The Sea, and her first direct collaboration with Watko, is the place where you can begin to hear that shift—a moving away from the more acoustic oriented, even twangy at times sound, toward something more intricate, with inherently more synthetic textures. 

Because it both is, and it is not.

I say it is not, because across No Woman’s 12 tracks, a number of them are operating from a somewhat similar place—an album that is robust in sound, focusing on more organic, or traditional instrumentation, as opposed to the synthetic tones Pollett and Watko would embrace as they began slowly working on In The Garden, By The Weeds, in 2021. 

I say that it is, though, because in that robust sound, and organic instrumentation, there is a want for something a little larger in scope than found on Strangers, and within that, you can hear these small flashes, or hints of the desire to experiment, or push things out just a little further from where they were. And you can hear that, certainly, in the Watko-helmed remix of “No Man is An Island,” which appears on the cassette reissue of No Woman (as well as two other remixes); and you can hear it, certainly, in the glitchy, synth-heavy, whimsically arranged opening track, “Fodder” as well as in small ripples of atmosphere throughout, like the quiet surges that swell in the stunning “All The Light,” or the eerie blasts of keyboard folded into the slinking rhythm of “Weightless.”

And I have, even very recently, written about how remiss I am to compare one artist so directly to another, because I feel like it is diminutive, and is not allowing the artist in question—the one you are focusing on, or, in my case, the one I am writing about, to stand on their own. 

And even though I am remiss to do this, and am often critical of other music writers when do draw such direct and occasionally unfounded comparisons from one artist to another, I still find myself doing so, perhaps just out of ease. And in doing so, my hope is that I expand upon the comparison enough, or in even briefly mentioning the similarities, that I give enough space and enough description, and praise, to the artist in question, so that you, the reader, can see what makes them so important, and worthwhile.

In the very brief piece I assembled about Pollett and In The Garden to contribute to the Atwood Magazine year-end list in 2023—and I believe it was ultimately well received, as the compliment it was intended to be, by Pollett when they read it—I drew a comparison through drawing another comparison. 

In 2021, I spent a lot of time invested in Mood Ring, a dazzling, blindingly bright slice of indie pop from Zoe Reynolds’ project Kississippi—and in the review I put together about it, I referred to it as the best Carly Rae Jepsen that Jepsen did not release that year. And I attempted a similar kind of complimentary comparison in speaking about In The Garden—that it was the best Flock of Dimes album of 2023 that Jenn Wasner did not release.

And I tell you all of that to tell you this—Wasner and Pollett do have similar vocal ranges, and tones. They can both work from within a lower, smokier register, before allowing their voices to soar to staggering, emotional heights. And Wasner, the co-founder of the beloved and sonically shifting duo Wye Oak, has also released two full-lengths and a handful of singles under the moniker Flock of Dimes, which in its earliest days, began as much more of a jittery, electro-infused project before shifting further into something more organic, or tender in sound, at least as of Wasner’s most recent effort under the name, 2021’s deeply personal Head of Roses. 

And so there are similarities, you see, or elements that are shared in a way, outside of their respective vocal ranges—the beginning of one place, or at one end, musically, then slowly shifting to the opposite, and what then does occur, sonically, in that space in between.

*

I think I like me…but I’m looking at me, and I don’t think I know how to love me.

And I think that the connection that I made to portions of In The Garden, By The Weeds really started to form once, after enough listens, or at least enough times with specific songs, began to realize how personal, and effecting Pollett’s lyric writing is throughout the album—and yes, there are places where their imagery can be rather evocative, in terms of metaphors, or the portrait they wish to paint, but it is also an album that thrives within a kind of honest, and self-observational space. It is an album that is, certainly, about a lot of things, but at the core, or at least the message that I think it wishes to get across, from beginning to end, is that putting in the work, or the effort, on yourself, is just that. It’s work. It isn’t easy. 

It’s not easy—but it is not forever.

I used to joke—not really as much as I once did, that “God was working on all of us.” 

We are, really, always working on ourselves. 

The work, or the journey towards any kind of self-improvement or betterment, at times, seems like it is never going to end. And that the unfortunate truth. Which is why it is work. And there is effort. It takes time. And it can be exhausting. But eventually, the hope is that it feels less like work, and just a little more natural, or habitual. 

But I have found, over maybe the last four years specifically, that even if you put in all of the efforts to make things—changes, improvements, whatever—appear more habitual or feel more natural to you, day to day, it isn’t always going to be that way. Or that easy. And that it takes a lot of discipline to maintain all of it, or even consider everything you have been encouraged to, or wish to do, to live some kind of better, or healthier life. 

And sometimes all of it, or even some of it, just sounds so easy and effortless in theory, but presents challenges, or might even seem impossible, in practice. 

*

Across the album’s nine songs, there is a kind of give and take that occurs, sonically speaking—and, I mean, overall, there is a slow and gradual build towards its conclusion, but there is this balance that Pollett and Watko strike of tension and release, from song to song certainly but also within a song itself, it can go from a feeling of reserve, or operated in a restrained way, before being given the chance to burst forth.

That is how In The Garden begins, with the hypnotic, gentle, and inward-looking “YKWIM,” shorthand for the phrase Pollett repeats a few times throughout—“You Know What I Mean”—a song that, as it ascended and explodes with bombast and exuberance the further in we go, serves as the thesis statement of what the other songs within this collection explore within the opposition of self-doubt and self-assurance.

And you will have to forgive me, reader, as I, again, break the fourth wall to address you directly, but to apologize, in earnest, for the amount of adjectives I overuse within my music writing. There are certain descriptors that I, simply, even with the access to a thesaurus, am aware that I lean on too often—some of them have now become part of a self-deprecating joke that I tell when I explain my writing process to someone, but some of them are, honestly, just unavoidable. 

So please excuse, and understand, how often I might fall back onto describing elements of In The Garden, In The Weeds, as sounding “glitchy,” or “skittering,” or “jittery.” 

Because, a lot of the album is.

Those are how I would describe the first sounds you hear, as “YKWIM” gently begins, slowly gathering its momentum—it starts with a muffled, or flattened, glitchy percussive element, creating a little blip and shuffle of a rhythm, that Pollett’s delicate acoustic guitar string plucks fold themselves into. And it is this kind of serene, introspective environment that the duo sustain until the song reaches its second verse—which is when a number of additional elements come tumbling in, including the ferocious chugs of a crunchy, distorted electric guitar, the heavy, thick thudding of a drum pattern, and a shimmering, swirling synthesizer tone—all of which push “YKWIM” into much more anthemic, soaring territory.

The song itself, in both that sense of tension, at the beginning, or a kind of hush, and then the release, that comes in the second half, also really speaks to the dynamism of Pollett’s writing—that it does work well, and that they can thrive within both kind of environments. 

I don’t remember if “YKWIM” was one of the first songs that I heard from In The Garden, or if one of the earlier singles issued prior to its release last July served as my introduction, but it is the kind of song, as the smoldering, then ascendant opening track, that certainly does grab your attention, musically, but Pollett also commands that attention with their lyricism.

There is, of course, a narrative, or at least a fragment, or a moment, that is depicted, as “YKWIM” unfolds, though that moment quickly passes, and the rest of the song is a long, stark look inward,  an the beginning of Pollett’s continual unflinching self-observations that, as they hold up that unflattering mirror to themself, ask us, as listeners to do the same.

“Somewhere between confidence and self-deprecation,” Pollett begins, quietly. “‘You know what I mean?,’’ they continue. “I say it, then I flip through the stations.”

And, with even just those few lines, Pollett does create such a vivid portrait of an exchange—one that, as the song continues, it becomes clearer that it is not going as well as they had perhaps hoped. “She’s looking at me,” Pollett states. “And I’m looking for the feeling. I feel it spinning, but I know that we’re on different rotations.”

And something that I began giving consideration to a number of years ago, because I was experiencing it, and it did, ultimately, end up in a lot of what I was writing, was about the feeling like you are fading away—or that there is something that is preventing you from remaining connected to people you once felt like you may have been. Just this very gradual turn further, and further inward.

And it is a strange feeling—it is not a great feeling. Not one that provides comfort. Where you can be in a room of people, or having a conversation with someone, and suddenly feel completely disconnected—the onset of then, rather quickly, pulls you, or at least me, into a terrible kind of sadness.

I sometimes think about that line from the Goo Goo Dolls song “Iris” that is repeated, with the urgency, and desperation it carries the more it is said—“I just want you to know who I am.”

I sometimes think about what it is like when someone really knows you, or understands you. And the sense of comfort that comes from that. When you realize how close you are with someone who can pick up on something subtle about you. Someone who knows how to make you laugh. Or will will simply listen to the minutiae of your day, or to your laments.

“I want to cry in the arms of somebody that knows me,” Pollett confesses in the chorus to “YKWIM.” “I think I’ve been trying,” they continue. “But I don’t want anybody to know me.”

“Somewhere between burning out and self-isolation,” they begin in the second verse, leaning further into the difficult but necessary introspective nature of the song. “I don’t know what that means—but I bite my cheek until I can taste it.”

“I think I like me,” Pollett muses as the instrumentation builds and continues to propel itself forward underneath her. “Hell, I think that I might like everybody. But I’m looking at me, and I don’t think that I know how to love me.”

The song ends, with Pollett repeating the want to cry in the arms of someone who knows them, but includes this additional lyric—“I can’t let anybody know me,” with the shift from not wanting, to something that simply cannot occur, driving home the severity, and intensity of the feeling, and this kind of disconnnectedness that they have explored.

Pollett continues writing both from this place, as well as about it, in the album’s second track, the rippling, melodic, and then surprisingly dissonant “Empty Things,” which, like a lot of songs on the album, the beginning of it is connected to the end of the song before it through impressive production work and transition. 

Structurally, “Empty Things” begins with a kind of minimalist quality in the bubbling, synthetic sound that creates the rhythm that Pollett’s voice skitters across the top of. But. This minimalism is quick to evolve into something more densely layered, with quiet, antiquated-sounding synthesizers and an arrangement of wind instruments, creating the briefest of moments in the song, prior to the arrival of the snarl of the chorus, which is surprising in how soothing it is—all of these elements weaving themselves around Pollett’s voice in a way that is startlingly gorgeous. 

And I would say that, I think, there is a restlessness to the way “Empty Things” continues to shift itself musically, building towards something and then quickly receding—that beauty does give way to a kind of ferocity and cacophony with Pollett howling above the huge, distorted strums of the electric guitar, with the clattering percussion buried just beneath the torrent.

Pollett’s writing, here, on “Empty Things,” continues a plunge inward to a much darker way we can look at ourselves, or at least one that offers little kindness—like in the line that is repeated throughout, “It’s what I thought I deserved.”

Or, the effecting, biting lines that are bellowed within the chorus. “What does that say about me?,” Pollett asks. “The only things that fill me are empty.”

Or, the line they open the second verse with, which is certainly one of the most singular, resonant phrase turns across the entirety of the record that does linger with you well after it has ended.

“Thank god sadness is easy. I tried holding onto anger, but it holds me.”

*

We’re all supposed to try

And I am certain that, at some point, prior to the moment I can remember—over five years ago, the last time I was on an airplane, somewhere in the space between Phoenix, Arizona, and the Twin Cities of Minnesota—I knew, or was aware, that the word “essay,” means “to try.” 

That realization was, among other things, part of the conceit of a personal essay I had written about my time in Arizona, and what it is like to take a depressed person on a trip, or a vacation, and what is, regardless of it is unspoken or actually verbalized, expected or wished of said depressed person as they both move through the world, day to day, and when they are out of their element, someplace else, and are supposed to be having a “good time.”

That we’re supposed to try.

It was something that, the more time I spent, in the years after his death, revisiting the work of Jason Molina—specifically the final Songs: Ohia album, Didn’t it Rain?, the self-titled album from The Magnolia Electric Company, and the two albums that Molina had released, under his own name, during his lifetime, I saw, more and more, how often he mentions the idea of “trying.” 

It is something that, as a severely depressed person who is, often, putting in the work as I am able, to the extent I am able, I think about often. About trying. That I am trying. Sometimes not even my best. 

We’re all supposed to try.

Pollett utters that phrase in the third track on In The Garden, By The Weeds, “The Nothing Answered Back”—a song that does not exactly slow the pacing down, but it does shift the tone. “Nothing Answered” burns slowly, but it does so with a surprising harshness or dissonance. Pollett’s vocals are run through a metallic, cold effect, putting some distance between their voice and us, as listeners, and the instrumentation that surrounds is just as metallic sounding—sharp, warbled bursts of noise, with moments of thundering, snarling electric guitar. 

And it isn’t “inaccessible,” but it is a little less inviting, in comparison, to the songs that come before it, but what is of interest in “Noting Answered,” are Pollett’s poignant lyricism, delivered mostly through questions that have no real answers.

“Is it okay,” they begin. “The way you miss before you knew better? When you could change the shape of love, depending on the weather?”

And there is something confrontational, or surprising in the starkness Pollett takes within the chorus—“Aren’t you grateful for the nothingness” they ask. “The way the sparks don’t catch? You asked for this, and here it is—the nothing answered back.”

And the reason I brought up the idea of trying is because, well, yes, the concept of the effort one could, or should, put forth towards self-betterment, however that looks, is a thread that does ultimately connect the songs included on In The Garden, By The Weeds, but it does also play a large role in the second verse.

“Do you feel shame? The way you live like you deserve better?,” Pollett sneers as the song continues. “Is it your age? Collective pain? Or just the constant fretting? You pick up every person just to try them on for size, and whisper to yourself again, ‘We’re all supposed to try.’”

And the reason I brought up the idea of trying, and specifically how that is a recurring idea in the lyricism of Jason Molina, is because I thought that it couldn’t be coincidental that Pollett says, “We’re all supposed to try,” in this song—seemingly referencing an excerpt for the lyrics from one of Molina’s most beloved songs, “Farewell Transmission.”

The internet moves a lot faster than I would like it to some of the time, and so while I might not be able to clearly remember how I was first introduced to In The Garden, By The Weeds last summer, and while, last year, I might not have had the time, or space, to sit down, the way I am doing now, and give the kind of thoughtful consideration to the album that it is very worthy of, in writing the smallest blurb about it for another publication, Josaleigh Pollett and I connected over Instagram, and have had a few brief exchanges, usually over music, or our seemingly mutual admiration of expressing sentiments over close friendships. 

I asked Pollett about that line, specifically, after I had spent time with In The Garden, listening to it really analytically for the first time. 

They told me Molina has been one of their biggest musical influences and loves. “I have this screen printed work my friend made in my bedroom that says, “We’re all supposed to try,” Pollett explained. “And I think about this lyric every day, and have since I was about 19.”

We are all supposed to try, aren’t we.

Or we wish to. 

But sometimes it does seem impossible, doesn’t it.

*

When I had written the short piece about In The Garden to be included on the year end list for Atwood Magazine, I had made that reference to Jenn Wasner’s Flock of Dimes—and in sharing the blurb across social media, Pollett mentioned that Wasner was a source of inspiration and and an influence.

I’ve seen Wasner play with Wye Oak twice—once, prior to the release of their sophomore album, The Knot, in a hole-in-the-wall club on a college campus in Northfield, Minnesota, and a second time, maybe a month or two after their breakthrough third album, Civilian had been issued, and the tension between Wasner and her bandmate (and at one-time romantic partner) Andy Stack, and the exhaustion, already, from promoting the record, could be felt in audience at the Turf Club in St. Paul.

I have seen Wasner only once perform as Flock of Dimes—recently, actually, at the end of May, at a house show, which has become a very economical way for her to tour with that project. 

I tell you all of that to tell you this—for the encore of Wasner’s performance from a living room (also, fittingly enough, in St. Paul), she performed a very stripped-down version of a one-off single from 2022 called “Pure Love.” And in introducing it, Wasner mentioned show much she appreciated something that I, too, really appreciate about the effectiveness of good pop music. If a song is well-written, and cleverly crafted, and, like, in the end, infectious in how it sounds, it can be used as a way to dress up, and distract, the listener, at least at first, from how sad the lyrics might be. 

And she mentioned this because she, much to her surprise, apparently pulled this trick on herself. “Pure Love,” in its recorded version, is a dazzling slice of synth-heavy pop, and in re-arranging the song to be performed in a slower, sparser version for just two guitars, she realized just how sad of a song she had actually written.

I tell you all of that to tell you this—there are a number of places on In The Garden where Pollett does the same thing, and it is impressive each time it happens. 

“Bad Dream (Not Broken),” for example, begins with a wash of airy, atmospheric synthesizer blips and tones while jittery percussive sounds oscillate and clatter back and forth—it doesn’t sound all that accessible, at first, but it does give a restrained, delicate kind of beauty, that ripples and twists itself under Pollett’s vocals—delivered in a way that is both tender and bold—and that kind of rippling does, ultimately, create a natural groove that one does fall into, which serves as just enough of a distraction from some of the phrasing and imagery found within.

“I woke up crying, again,” Pollett begins. “Some particular dream that has caused me to spin….I woke up fearful again—with a gasp about nothing. Clasp my chest as it gets back to beating, and I fall asleep again.”

“I fall asleep quickly,” they continue, in the second verse. “I am fast to the place without ut pain, but here days, it is dark in there too, and I’m forgetting my own name—watch the scene go up in flames. Try to scream, but I just can’t remember your name. No,” they continue. “I just can’t remember our names.”

The chorus of “Bad Dreams” is, then, the bleakest admission—“Having bad dreams about you/about me,” Pollett confesses. “I don’t dream about good anymore.”

Pollett and Watko, then, replicate this kind of musical legerdemain in the second half of the record with “Jawbreaker.”

In the structure, there is something that is rather beautiful, and kind of haunting, or at least sorrowful about how “Jawbreaker” sounds—the why, though—like, why it sounds that way, or has that kind of impact upon listening, is challenging for me to articulate.

It might have to do with the cadence of Pollett’s voice, especially as they deliver the opening line, with barely any instrumentation underneath, save for the hushed quiver of a distorted keyboard melody. And maybe it’s that melody itself, or its tone, that has a more melancholic feeling to it.

The song itself picks up its momentum deliberately, with the jittery percussive elements tumbling in at just the right moment, to truly punctuate a phrase turn in the lyrics, as some subtle guitar string plucks, and additional synthesizer tones swirl around—all of it creating a kind of groove, that you do end up nodding your head to, perhaps distracted just enough by both the atmosphere and that propulsion to move yourself in time, to overlook the darkness that is very, very present.

Pollett makes the most of the metaphor of the jawbreaker in the writing, and what is most impactful, and what you, or at least I, found myself ruminating on after sitting down with this album, and this song, and really listening intently was the question, that goes unanswered, in the chorus, that does speak to the larger themes of improvement, and betterment, and the work that goes into all of it.

“What if at the center, I am just more of the same?”

*

And there is, of course, an impactful, thoughtful, and poignant nature to Pollett’s lyricism throughout In The Garden, By The Weeds, so the album, as a whole, with, like, the through lines of self-improvement, self-deprecation, and the space that forms in the middle of the two extremes, does not really need to culminate in something much, much larger in scope, or more emotional than the album already is, from start to finish.

And yet, it does.

Pollett doesn’t necessarily “save” the most resonant, lyrically, songs for the album’s second half, but that is where three of the most effecting, for me, and perhaps for you, as well, if you have spent as much time with this record as I have over the last year, are located—including the final two tracks of the record: the sprawling, shifting “Earthquake Song,” and the optimistic, anthemic “July.”

I can see the good in anything—do you want me to?

And I had, certainly, spent a lot of time with In The Garden, By The Weeds, over the course of the last year—often listening from beginning to end. And, sure, there were specific songs that I gravitated towards as being my “favorites,” or the ones that resonated with me the most, on a more personal, and reflective level. And so I am uncertain why, within the last few weeks, during a listen-through, the penultimate track, “Earthquake Song,” connected with me in a way I was, perhaps, not anticipating. 

“Earthquake Song,” is structured around two parts, or movements—not exactly split in half, across the song’s five and a half minute running time, with the first portion a lot looser in how it sways, finding a very vague rhythm, most of it hinging on the rising and falling of Pollett’s voice—which is both layered to add depth, and is distorted through a metallic sounding effect.

And it’s not like her voice is the only thing during the first two minutes and change, but it is the focus, and the way it is layered, and arrives sounding much more robust, or cavernous, works its way into the kind of low, rumbling, synthetic noises occurring below.

Pollet’s voice, and certainly, her words, in this first half of the song, do more than enough to carry it, and keep us, as listeners, captivated—personal enough that it is quite revealing, but also ambiguous, or vague enough, in the way it plays with poetic, fragmented images. It gives you an idea of something—discourse, or tension, both within the self, and in a dynamic with someone else, but it does not bring us much further than it needs to. 

“I’m too tired to have an opinion—coughing up smoke from a decade ago,” they begin. “I didn’t bargain for these sorts of feelings. I don’t believe you when you say you don’t know.”

Then, in the second verse, the tension, as depicted, grows. 

“I could have sworn that I knew you already,” Pollett continues, with some resentment in their voice. “Why am I learning just now who you are? I used to think I could trust myself fully—but I’ve never been one to be thrown that far.”

Their vocals swell, along with the crackling sounds and keyboard tones underneath, in the chorus, which asks questions, but no answer is ultimately provided. “Was that another earthquake?” In the first chorus, it might just be the garbage truck; the second time, it could be fireworks.

“I bet we forgot to take cans out,” Pollett sighs. “I bet that we’re shit out of luck.” Then, later on—“I bet that they’re catching our lawn on fire. I hope that the flame doesn’t hurt.”

And the shift, then, in “Earthquake Song,” is gradual, as one part moves into the other—and in that shift, the overall tone of the song changes as well—with a wonky, almost whimsical, sounding synthesizer melody plunked out, and a clattering drum machine pattern coming in and creating a more substantial rhythm for the song to follow. It doesn’t climb to anthemic heights, really. But. It is, in a sharp contrast to the dissonance and pessimism of the first half, rather optimistic, or hopeful, in sound, and in the line that Pollett repeats until the very end.

“I can see the good in anything—Do you want me to?”

And it is this second part of “Earthquake Song” that struck me the most, recently, when I was listening to In The Garden, once again. This statement—bold. Perhaps hyperbolic. Followed by this ask.

Because, yes, there is, of course, something hopeful about the idea of looking for the good in anything. But there is also a kind of desperate urgency to the way it is said—and the way it is repeated. It doesn’t grow in urgency at all, as it carries us to the end. But there is something about that. Telling that to someone, perhaps, out of exhaustion with yourself, or the tension or discourse as depicted. And hoping that it creates a resolution.

It ends with the question being asked. “Do you want me to?” Another question that is not answered. 

I can see the good in anything.

Do you want me to?

*

Throughout most of November, last year, I spent a lot of time listening to the second full-length album from the Australian singer and songwriter Angie McMahon—Light, Dark, Light Again, an album that, similar to In The Garden, By The Weeds, is structured around the conceit of self-improvement, or self-discovery, or a kind of betterment, and the continued work that is required, or we ask ourselves to put in, even when it seems impossible.

McMahon, on Light, Dark, is brutal in the depictions, within her writing, of the rock bottom she admittedly found herself in, and the slow journey of clawing her way out. And with even as dark as that album’s cycle of songs can be, at points, it does find, as it concludes, these slivers of hope, or optimism.

In The Garden, too, concludes with what is most certainly the album’s most triumphant and anthemic song—“July.” In its structure—it is a song that is, at least, dressed up with a powerful sense of that kind of hope and optimism for whatever comes after the record is over. And, of course, throughout, Pollett does a lot of reflecting on the self within the lyrics in literally all nine of the songs included here, but there is a different kind of look inward on “July”—one that understands growth, or change, or betterment is a slow, very gradual process, and in that understanding, can see the improvements—sometimes very small—that have already taken place.

And at first, there is something a little ominous, or dark, about the pulsating synthesizer tone that you hear at the top of “July,” before there is a resolve in the form of both Pollett’s voice delivering the first line, then the drum machine programming coming in to create a steady rhythm amidst the washes of textures continually swirling and whooshing around.

And within that swirling, and whooshing, and rippling, and within the steady, crunchy sounding beat that pushes the song forward with such a sense of purpose, the thing that does ultimately make it so triumphant, or anthemic, in sound, is how gradual of a build it has—the way additional elements are just slowly introduced at just the right moment: like the drums coming in on Pollett’s opening line, or things just resolving to a place that sounds a little lighter, and another wash of synthesizer tone arriving as a means of punctuating the chorus. 

Or the whimsical, smaller melody line that floats in as the second verse begins, and the subtraction or addition of the different textures—pulled away, and re-inserted the further the song goes, as a way to create just the slightest sense of tension that received the slightest amount of release in the final verse, when everything does truly begin to dazzle, and shimmer, as Pollett and Watko lead us toward the surprising uncertainty of the final line.

On social media, specifically over the last six months, Pollett has been very vocal about their journey with sobriety—and has revealed just enough about the role that alcohol has played in their life up until the decision, at the end of 2023, to make the effort and give it up.

“I stopped drinking whiskey—I’m open to love,” is one of the very last lines in “July,” and is one of many lyrics that depict the small ways that one can try to better themselves. And because their conscious effort at sobriety began months after the album’s release, but with these allusions to improvement, I did ask Pollett if giving up alcohol was something that had been in mind during the writing and recording of In The Garden.

The answer was both yes and no.

“I was still partaking pretty regularly,” Pollett explained. “For the last few years, however, I had been playing around with breaks—thirty days here and there, on and off—mostly for mental health reasons and for creative purposes.”

“In the writing of this record,” they continued. “I think I was beginning to realize the effect alcohol was having on my mental state and creativity. I was starting to figure out that sobriety was something I needed more in my life, even if I was not quite there yet.”

There is something affirming to a lot of the writing within “July”—noting the positive steps, or changes, that are taking place while also still understanding that there is still room for more growth, and kindnesses to show to yourself if you are able, as you are able.

“I’m doing it all,” Pollett declares at the beginning of the song. “I’m holding myself. I’m taking a walk. I’m writing a lot,” they continue, before, just a line later, finding the way to connect “July” back more directly to the larger idea (and metaphor) within the album as a whole.

“I’m pulling up weeds, and I planted a tree.”

The places where there still can be growth come later. “I’m doing too much—like I always do,” Pollett confesses at the start of the second verse, a line that, even in its seemingly simple observation, really resonated deeply with me as a very classic over-functioner, as did the next line. “I’m hoping to have better brain days soon.”

And it is subtle, an in its subtleties, there is something impressive about the contrasts Pollett makes within “July”—it is most apparent with the lines that begin both verses: “I’m doing it all,” and “I’m doing to much.” But they do it again within the chorus as well—“I drink enough water. I let myself cry,” Pollett observes the first time around. “Do you think that’s alright? I hope that’s alright,” before altering the line near the end of the song, and ending the album on a rather pensive, and kind of urgent note.

“I stopped drinking whiskey, and I’m open to love. But it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough.”

*

It’s not easy. But it is not forever.

Certainly, I was aware of the sentiments of the gentle track, arriving around the halfway point of the record, “Not Easy, Not Forever,” during my earliest listens through of In The Garden, in the summer, but it would have been well into the fall, near the end of 2023, when it became such a personal and affecting song for me—and, I mean, across the album’s nine tracks, there are a number of them that do really resonate deeply, but I find that in giving it all consideration, “Not Easy” is certainly the most important, perhaps just because of the reminder that it wishes to provide.

And there are, of course, delicate moments, or fragile moments, throughout In The Garden, By The Weeds, but they are often brief, and give way to something exponentially less fragile or delicate in tone—“Not Easy, Not Forever” is the place where Pollett and Watko allow the structure of the song to remain in that very hushed, tender place. 

Based primarily around Pollett’s delicate, plaintive strums of the acoustic guitar, creating the loosest kind of rhythm and tempo for their voice to follow, with the song’s lyrics tumbling out within just the right moments, the additional production elements to “Not Easy” are almost nonexistent—save for a few moments of manipulation on Pollett’s vocals near the end, including the way a sustained, higher note cavernously rings out for what feels like forever, and then the dramatic, reversed noises and warbled, metallic effect that slowly makes over in as they sing the titular phrase when the song is reaching its conclusion.

Pollett explained to me that they, in the past, when writing songs for an album, did not head into the process with a connecting thread, or real overarching theme in mind. The earliest songs written for In The Garden, By The Weeds were “Bad Dreams” and “Cinderblocks,” both they and Watko, “realize there could be some through-lines and it could be really interesting to be really intentional with what we wrote next.”

That intentionality does ultimately arrive in the imagery found within the title of the album, which is referenced, or drawn upon, in a few places across the nine songs here, and is placed within the gentle center of “Not Easy, Not Forever.”

Placed at the top half of the album’s second side, lyrically, it is kind of the centerpiece to In The Garden because it is the place where you can hear the most introspection—a kind of reckoning with the self, and then a wondering what, if anything, comes next as the long, seemingly unending road of discovery and improvement and betterment continues. 

“Feels like I’ve been growing this garden for years, and I guess that I do see some progress,” Pollett admits. “Pulling up weeds as I wipe away tears—I’m starting to tire of the process,” they continue, before adding, “Running out of space for the excess.”

An idea that Pollett weaves into “Not Easy” is the concept of being alone versus feeling lonely—there is a space where those things overlap, yes, but they are also two different things. That overlap is present in the song’s opening line: “I only feel present when I am alone—it’s starting to make me lonely,” and it is something that they return to in the final, poignant verse.

“Took a long time,” Pollett sings, their voice soaring, yet coming from a place of tender reserve. “To be okay on my own. Am I giving up what’s mine if I let myself be known? If I meet you in the glow of the garden overgrown?”

There is no real chorus, exactly, to “Not Easy,” but a slight return, often, to an expansion of the titular phrase, which is the thing that we are left with as the song grows and twists itself suddenly in the end. “It’s not easy—but it is not forever.”

And there are, of course, albums that you connect with almost immediately when you first sit down with them. There are the albums that you might never connect with, despite how much effort you put in. And there are the albums that are what is commonly referred to as “growers”—the ones where you need just a little bit of time with in order to find your way in.

A year ago, In The Garden, By The Weeds was an album that I did immediately connect with—admiring how densely layered it is, musically, and how personal and thoughtful Pollett’s lyric writing is. But I think that, because I did not really “sit down” with it, with the intent to analyze it, and write something about it, it would have been many months later, after the vinyl edition of it had shipped and found its way onto my record player, that I was spending more time with it, and in it, as it were, and it then began to reveal itself to me more and more—revealing, specifically, the places that I saw myself reflected in its depictions of betterment and growth, or at least the attempts we make.

It was the line, “It’s not easy—but it is not forever,” that hit me, hard, in late autumn, in a moment, like so many moments, when I am not feeling my best. 

And there are, of course, so many places where I do see that reflection, however unflattering or however humbling, or myself, my shortcomings, and the places where I am always putting in “the work,” or am trying to claw my way out of the near rock bottom, emotionally, that I often plummet to.

There are of course so many places, like within the opening track, “YKWIM” where Pollett makes an ask for I think things that everyone wants, or needs, even though it’s followed with a line of hesitation. “I want to cry in the arms of somebody that knows me.”

And there is, of course, a long history over the last five years of my incorporation of the chronically online expression, “feeling seen and/or attacked,” into my writing, specifically when analyzing more personally written lyrics—“Thank god sadness is easy,” is certainly one of those. “Tried holding onto anger, but it holds me.”

And there is, of course, the notion that I am so often thinking about—“We’re all supposed to try.”

*

On social media, specifically over the last six months, Pollett has been very vocal about their journey with sobriety—as has my friend Kelsey, whom I knew for a number of years from just the internet, but got to know better in person over the last two years through a book group that meets every two to three months. 

And there are, of course, myriad reasons that people choose to drink alcohol—reasons for how much they drink at a time, or how often. And there are of course myriad reasons that people choose to abstain from it completely, or participate in what is called “sober curious.”

In an Instagram post about the last six months of sobriety, Pollett described it as weird, emotional, and magic. “I didn’t set out to stop drinking for good—it started with the holidays and then just kept on.”

“I’m proud of myself,” they continued. “Because I really never imagined a version of myself that wasn’t a little bit drunk all of the time. Here’s to all the ways we get to know ourselves.”

It started with the holidays for me, as well, with the decision to leave alcohol behind. The day before New Year’s Eve. I thought, like a lot of people as one year ends and another begins, that I would participate in “Dry January.”

January turns into February turns into March. Into April. Into May. It started as a test, to myself, or against myself, rather, to see if I could, in fact, abstain. And then could sustain.

Into June. Into July.

My best friend, at some point near the end of 2023, said to me, out of concern, and out of genuine care, that nobody with as many mental health issues as I have should be drinking at all. 

There are, of course, myriad reasons that people choose to drink alcohol—reasons for how much they drink at a time, or how often. 

Kelsey, when I have asked her about her own journey with sobriety since the end of 2023, she said that it regardless of whatever kind of relationship she had with alcohol at the time, she realized it was something that was no longer serving her in any kind of beneficial way. 

My spouse, at some point near the end of 2023, said to me, out of concern and care, yes, but also out of sheer frustration, that I was very clearly beginning to rely on alcohol too much as a means of coping rather than addressing some of the larger problems that I am nearly always trying to outrun, and am rarely successful at doing so.

July into.

A test, against myself, to see if I could abstain. And then sustain.

“I’m proud of myself,” Pollett exclaims in the album’s final track. “Sometimes it’s okay.”

Sometimes it is okay. And rarely, if ever, do I feel proud of myself, or acknowledge what I have accomplished, or done, or have persevered through, even if others often do. 

Making the effort, or commitment, or putting in “the work,” or trying, as it were, is not easy. Sometimes, it seems impossible. Sometimes it seems like you’ve taken on entirely too much—too many things about yourself you wish to improve; too many ways in which you wish to grow. In The Garden, By The Weeds is, more than anything, an evocative and personal reflection of the ways that we are all trying, and continuing to make the efforts, and the reminder that for as impossible as it seems at times, there will be a moment when it won’t feel that way. 

I think about how, on my arms, I am running out of available real estate for additional, larger tattoos, and I wonder how much further in life I will continue to have the desire to add more and more things.

I look the swaths of open space that I have, on the upper portion of my left arm and I wonder how much further I will insist on making it, this year, next year, whenever, before I decide it is time to commemorate. 

It’s not easy.

It is not forever. 

In The Garden, By The Weeds is available through Lavender; a companion remix album was recently released, which you can download from Pollett's Bandcamp page.