Jana Horn’s Window To the World

It was barely a year ago when most fans were properly introduced to the cosmos of Jana Horn, who spent time singing in country music revues as a child and then became an MFA student moonlighting as a singer/songwriter as an adult. Or maybe the order of the latter was reversed. Her debut LP, Optimism, was actually recorded five years ago, but Philadelphia-based label No Quarter reissued it to the masses in 2022. It was a perfect reintroduction to Horn’s minimalist rendition of plucky, dreamy, jazz-tinged folk music. What’s unique about Horn is that her oeuvre stands apart from that of her contemporaries. She’s often likened to folks like Cate Le Bon and Aldous Harding, which is a fancy way of calling her lyricism modernist. But it’s true, Horn’s language is arcane, and much of it stems from her fiction escapades at the University of Virginia.

But, at the same time, there’s something different—something mythically eclectic— about Horn’s music-making. Is it because she doesn’t use any streaming service for music? Or is it because her literary influences are what’s teaching her to pen worlds, not records? On her sophomore album, The Window Is The Dream, it appears to be both and then so much more. Songs like “Days Go By” and “The Dream” tap into her off-kilter approach to arrangements. The tracks are still as dainty and minimal as ever, but, now, there’s a new edge to all of them. She doesn’t get too personal in her storytelling, but she doesn’t need to. The songs evoke visceral emotion through the architecture of her sonic vision. It doesn’t hurt that she has an incredible ecosystem of musicians around her, including Jared Samuel Elioseff, Adam Jones, Jonathan Horne, Daniel Francis Doyle and Sarah La Puerta Gautier.

The Window Is The Dream is a bit more electric than Optimism was, thanks to Horne’s splendid guitar work. That aural upgrade pairs well with Horn’s hypnotizing soprano vocals, which are sharper than ever. When she’s not making records or playing shows, she’s teaching freshmen classes, working on her thesis and making note of the world that surrounds her. Though it’s only been a year since Optimism was put back on all of our radars, Horn has grown exponentially between records, making The Window Is The Dream a small triumph at the beginning of—what will likely be—a long, winding career. With The Window Is The Dream out today via No Quarter, Horn sat down with Paste to talk about the record, not defining her own work, the pre-Optimism album that never saw the light of day and how she keeps up with her students who consume music 24/7.

Paste Magazine: So you put out Optimism in 2022. And then you turned around and recorded another album pretty quickly after. Did you find yourself in a particularly good creative spark, or was there more left that needed said after Optimism?

Jana Horn: I don’t suppose it was that conscious. I think that I am always in the process of working on something—creating something—and it just came out. It wasn’t conscious, to follow up Optimism. I had no intentions, really, of putting it out. I had turned a page in my life: I’d gone from living in Austin, where music was very much central to everything I did, and moved to Virginia where I really wasn’t friends with musicians. I was in a completely different world, a more literary, writing world. And I didn’t intend to depart from music, per se. But I was in a situation in which it was something I did privately, as opposed to in a more communal sense. So, the fact that it came about at all is a bit indirect, I suppose, and less consciously than I made Optimism.

Paste: You recorded a solo album before Optimism, but you scrapped it. What happened there?

Horn: Yeah, I just started making music on my own after many years of making it with other people. And there was a process of discovery that ensued and it wasn’t graceful. It was difficult to figure out how to do it all on my own. I didn’t do it all on my own, and I don’t do anything on my own, really. But trying to figure that out was a bit of a mess. I had to lose some stuff in the process. I had to whittle away at what it meant to be a solo artist.

Paste: It feels like the direction you took on Optimism is reflected in The Window Is The Dream. Was there a moment where you figured out what that direction was going to be and that you wanted to pursue it fully?

Horn: I don’t know if I have really defined what I am or what I do. I try to just let what’s happening happen. I do have a strong sense of not wanting to trick anyone and give songs their own time and space. I used to be self-conscious, or something. There was a time in my life when I really was frustrated by the fact that my music didn’t sound like the music that I liked or that I listened to. Now, I came to this realization that the music I make isn’t for me. I make music and I seek out what makes sense to me, what comes naturally. But, I wouldn’t say I’ve found that thing that is particularly reflective of me. I make it in the way that feels most intuitive to me.

Paste: There are some great collaborators on The Window Is The Dream: Jared Samuel Elioseff, Adam Jones, Jonathan Horne, Daniel Francis Doyle. How did you come to assemble such an eclectic group of people who can conjure sounds that mirror everything from Judee Sill to Mount Eerie to Television?

Horn: I have really talented friends. They’re so amazing. I can probably boil it all down to Austin, if you want to be really specific. Austin is full of really incredible musicians and, everyone you mentioned, I encountered in some way in Austin and I’ve just been able to maintain friendships with over the years. I really like playing with musicians [whose] instruments are personality. And I think, on this record more so than the last, I tried to let other voices exist in the room and let them speak for themselves and try not to do so much steering, to allow some real conversation within the songs. So, yeah, you get some really outstanding, weird guitar from Jonathan. I can’t take any credit for those kinds of things. I can just be in awe.

Paste: What did the process look like when you made the decision to record at Jared’s studio?

Horn: I actually thought I would record in Austin. And then Sarah [La Puerta Gautier], my best friend, she lives in Upstate New York with Jared and she was like, “Why don’t you record here?” And I was like, “Really?” And she’s like, “Yeah, we’re turning our barn into a studio and we’ll play on the record and Jared will record it and it’ll be a whole thing.” And, so, I said, “Okay, sure.” I recorded, mostly, there with him and Sarah, and then I did a little additional recording back in Austin with Jonathan, because he still lives in Austin. But, we’re all really close friends and it was just finding a way to get us all on the album.

Paste: When you move to a place like Virginia—and then, you’ve got friends in Austin and Jared’s got a studio in New York—is it difficult having to bounce around all of these places while juggling your school responsibilities in Virginia while trying to build a record at the same time?

Horn: Of course. It was a really pulled-apart process of just being in many places at once and trying to keep up with my work here while I’m there, in Texas or wherever. It was a lot. I mean, I like teaching and going to school here to get my degree. And then, I made the album [while] doing a thesis. It’s like I did two theses this year, but they won’t accept that.

Paste: Does that make playing the songs in front of people more of a challenge, when you have so much going on?

Horn: Yes, but I have gone on tour while doing all of this, too. I have played shows here and there, and it’s fun. I don’t know, there’s something a bit more to it. The friction, the absolute power of will that it takes a blade of grass to shoot up from the ground, it’s like that: Something about that tension that can make something more singular occur than just having a lot of time on your hands, practicing every day and hitting the stage.

Paste: Can you tell me a bit about singing in country music reviews as a kid? How did that experience end up influencing you once you started really taking songwriting seriously?

Horn: It’s hard to say what influences what; which thing becomes another thing. I’m not really sure. I know that, as a kid, I loved to perform. Those days, on the Johnny High Country Music Revue, inspired my stage performance. But, it feels really different than where I ended up going, musically. It’s all a part of the same thing, but I don’t know how much.

Paste: How does migrating from a place like Austin to Charlottesville affect your capacity as a creative? Do you find yourself reflecting on your old home much, or are you finding yourself more inspired by your immediate surroundings these days?

Horn: I’m always thinking of Texas. I see Texas-shaped rocks on the ground when I’m walking. I feel very tethered to Texas, on the essential level. These other places that I filter through have their place, I suppose, but it’s so different. Texas, it’s really different. It’s got all the things that I love and I’m thinking about it a lot.

Paste: Some folks called Optimism a very literary record. You’re actually in a fiction MFA at University of Virginia. How do those studies tumble into your work? Does it let you get a bit more romantic about parts of your life, or do you tend to stay pretty autobiographical in your songwriting? Or is it even a blend of both at times?

Horn: I don’t really think of it that way. It all starts with some piece of self-knowledge, so there’s your autobiography aspect. But, I try to stray from staking any real claims and making my specific thoughts and feelings known on the page. My writing process feels a little more unconscious than that. I try to enter into a song without knowing what will become of it or what will come out of my mouth or what’s the next thing that’s going to take place. I try to let each word build on the last and create something in the process of doing it. So, maybe, if we’re talking in literary terms, like a poem, where each word plays with the one before that, I’m hoping that some sort of unconsciousness makes it to the page.

Paste: I read that you didn’t have access to much music when you were writing The Window Is The Dream, so you turned to the literary works of Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges instead. Is it easier to make music without the pressure of sonic influence or parallelism?

Horn: I know this sounds like, maybe, a strange thing to say, but I just think I require quiet. I love music! I listen to it and I become very attached to particular albums and I listen to them over and over again. It was a pure love of that quality of music that made me want to make it, and there’s nothing like it. I don’t listen to it all the time, even if I have access to a record player—which I don’t—or access to streaming things—which I don’t. I need to be able to hear myself think, I guess. There’s so much music out there. I teach students who are 18 and they don’t go anywhere without their music. And they listen to music constantly. I think that would limit my instincts and thoughts and intuition about stuff.

Paste: It’s the opposite side of the spectrum, in a lot of ways. There are so many artists who, while recording, are consuming music constantly. But you need that balance on the other end. It’s good to have both sides, because both sides are necessary.

Horn: I am a firm believer that you become a better writer by becoming a better reader. I think that applies to music. I don’t necessarily take my own advice, but I think that—when it comes to listening—if I listen to more music, perhaps my music would improve. But I think there’s something to that, like you said it’s two sides of that coin, where you need to be listening a lot and you need to also have that song of silence that you can hear yourself through.

Paste: There are a lot of buzzwords and comparisons that get drawn to your work, like Syd Barrett, Cate Le Bon, Aldous Harding, The Raincoats. All of these folks who’ve made primitive, austere, sometimes absurd, surreal work. Is there a curiosity that you discovered—since you started making music in the capacity that you do right now—that has really propelled you into the exploration of being an artist trying to make the best work possible that also feels the most authentically you?

Horn: Like I was saying earlier about, maybe, my music isn’t for me, I really don’t know what it sounds like. You don’t really ever know what you look like. So, to hear who I’m compared to and stuff is always interesting. It’s always like, “Oh, that’s clever.” I like the names that you mentioned. I’m flattered by them. I do think that we make really different music, but that’s okay. I’d rather be compared to someone I’m very different from—but have something essential similar to—than someone I’m actually superficially similar to but not actually. If you compared me to a rapper, sometimes that feels truer than saying “Oh, I sound like another folk artist,” when, really, what we’re doing might be quite dissimilar.

Paste: Are there ever times where you wish that your music was for yourself?

Horn: Maybe. Maybe I wish that my music was so killer that I wanted to listen to it non-stop. No, I don’t know. I guess the quick answer would be “sure.” I wish that there was a one-to-one relationship between what you intend and what comes out, but I don’t know if I trust myself enough. I’d rather it just be open to interpretation than me having some really sharp idea about what it’s going to sound like. My opinions change too much. I’ll like it today; I’ll hate it tomorrow. I’d rather just make something and, if it’s not super embarrassing, put it out and let it be described by someone else.