Jessica Lea Mayfield

Thursday November 12th

Jessica Lea Mayfield w/ Rachel Bobbitt

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When I was recording what would become “Miss Obliteration” with Day Wave I started to get the eerie sense that I was writing more than lyrics, but predictive themes. I was married to my second husband but could see the writing on the wall, a metaphorical tornado was about to tear through my life I denied it. The record kept getting pushed back for various reasons, and I kept thinking it was getting pushed back by a greater force, now 3 years later my life is entirely different and I am radically changed as a person. From my spiritual beliefs, to my person goals and dreams and just in general, nearly everything. I had a feeling this album wouldn’t see light until that chapter of my life complete.

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“The ocean does not care about you at all,” declares Rachel Bobbitt. “That’s what makes something truly awesome—it could and will exist, with or without you.”

The ocean looms, uncaring yet vital, conceptually and actually on Bobbitt’s debut full-length LP, Swimming Towards the Sand. Raised in the windswept Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, Bobbitt roots herself in the memories and milestones of home more than a decade after her voice first found an audience through the lens of internet virality. Growing up in a musical household, where her mom’s side hosted kitchen fiddle parties, Bobbitt was surrounded by music from the beginning. At just 16 years old, she’d amassed a large Vine following, performing covers and originals to an audience of 400,000 strong, leading to Shorty Award nominations and being crowned by Buzzfeed as one of “13 Amazing Singers You Should Follow On Vine.” She now looks back at that time with nuance, feeling both reinforced in her abilities by the response and, at the same time, overwhelmed by the onslaught of opinions—opinions on her career, appearance, voice, image—at an age when she was still figuring out what those things meant for herself.

A dozen years later, after studying Jazz and Vocal Pedagogy at the renowned Humber College, learning the rules of the road, and navigating the music industry from her home base in Toronto, Bobbitt arrives at Swimming Towards the Sand with an unwavering sense of purpose. It’s an album that revisits her roots with the clarity of perspective, the wisdom of experience, and the lessons of resilience that can only come with time. It looks back with an eye both clear and nostalgic and reflects her memories via sharply contemporary music.