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Sarah Jaffe is an American singer-songwriter from Denton, Texas. Known for her distinctively clear vocals, she has worked as a singer-songwriter across many musical genres, including acoustic-folk, indie pop and hip hop.
Jaffe's mom bought her a used acoustic guitar when she was 9 or 10 years old. She began playing music and performing when she was in high school in Dallas. She said that her family was musical, with her dad bringing influences of folk music and her mother that of the church choir. During this time, a local musician named Doug Burr was a mentor.
In 2008, Jaffe self-released a six-song EP called Even Born Again. The record has been described as singer-songwriter gothic-folk, and features Jaffe on guitar accompanied by a cellist as well as another guitarist.
Even Born Again featured the first release of her song, "Clementine," which is one of Jaffe's most well-known songs and was featured on NPR's Song of the Day. Jaffe said that she wrote the song quickly during a tour with a band she was playing with in Arkansas. The song, which she wrote in 10 minutes, was meant as filler because the band didn't have enough songs. Jaffe said the audience had an immediate positive reaction to the song.
In late 2009, she was signed to Kirtland Records (Bob Schneider, Toadies), the Dallas-based record label co-owned by Deep Blue Something drummer John Kirtland and his wife, The Polyphonic Spree's Jenny Kirtland.
In May 2010, Jaffe released her first full-length album Suburban Nature, which was recorded in December 2008. The record feature layers of vocals and incorporates ambient music, with live performances often including a cello, a violin and/or violinists (sometimes a quartet), an additional guitar, a string section, keyboards, and a drummer, a big departure from Jaffe's initial EP, which was more stripped down sounding. The song "Clementine" appears on Suburban Nature, and a video of the song, which was shot in the summer in Texas, was made by Jon Todd Collins.
In 2011, she released an EP called The Way Sound Leaves a Room that included a DVD video performance at the Wyly Theatre in Dallas from February 2011. This record included a cover of Drake's song, "Shut it Down". It also included a live cover of the Robyn song, "Hang With Me." Jaffe said the EP started with the song, "A Sucker For Your Marketing," and was meant to be a lo-fi quick project to explore music beyond her initial acoustic work. She bought a second-hand bass guitar and drum set and learned how to play them, using the new instruments to explore this new musical direction.
On April 21, 2012, she released her second full-length album called The Body Wins, which was produced by fellow Texan John Congleton. When writing the record, Jaffe heavily incorporated the bass guitar and drum set she had bought for the prior EP, using the instruments to add rhythm, drums, and melodies, which fit with Congleton's approach to producing. The Body Wins continues a movement away from Jaffe's early acoustic guitar singer-songwriter sound and expansion into electropop tunes. As part of the promotion of the record, Jaffe performed "Talk", a single from that album, on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on December 11, 2012.
In 2012, Jaffe met fellow North Texas-based producer Symbolyc One also known as S1 (Beyoncé, Erykah Badu, Jay-Z, Madonna, Talib Kweli) during a session where the music producer collective The Cannabinoids was remixing Jaffe's “Glorified High,” a track from her 2012 record, The Body Wins.
S1 and Jaffe ended up forming a group called The Dividends. The name came from the idea of distribution of profits. The Dividends project resulted in an EP called Far From Away. Jaffe has said that she was a big hip hop music fan, but her music up until the collaboration with S1 had not explored beyond Americana and indie pop yet. The work with The Dividends removed the concept of genre and incorporated a diverse mixture of R&B, jazz, electronica, rock, and pop. Jaffe said helped her move past writer's block and into more creative genre-busting directions.
This collaboration with the South Dallas-based S1 led to Jaffe contributing vocals and lyrics to Eminem's song "Bad Guy" off his 2013 album The Marshall Mathers LP 2. S1 produced the first half of the song with M-Phazes, with the second track produced by StreetRunner.
In 2013 for Record Store Day, Jaffe sang a cover of PJ Harvey's "Down by the Water" on a 7-inch recording with Toadies, an alternative rock band from Fort Worth, Texas. The track was recorded live at the 2012 Dia de los Toadies Festival.
In 2014, Jaffe released her third full-length record, Don't Disconnect. The record marked a big stylistic shift into what has been described as pop-rock. Don't Disconnect was produced by Midlake drummer and producer McKenzie Smith at Redwood Studio in Denton, Texas, which Smith owns with fellow Midlake bandmate, guitarist Joey McClellan. The song, "Some People Will Tell You," was listed as a Songs We Love by NPR.
In 2015, Jaffe released a remix EP called Visions. Visions features the single, "Vision," with Sam Lao and Zhora. The record has mixes by Mystery Skulls, Symbolyc One, and Blue, The Misfit. As part of the promotion of the record, Jaffe performed with some of the artists on Visions, recreating the music live on stage at Trees in Dallas.
In 2017, Jaffe released her fourth full-length record, Bad Baby. Bad Baby opens with the track "Synthetic Love," which is over six minutes long. The album artwork is by the Los Angeles-based photographer Lindsey Byrnes and Brooklyn-based illustrator John Lisle.
In 2013, Jaffe sang vocals on "The Blue Umbrella Suite" by Jon Brion, which was featured in The Blue Umbrella, a short film for 2013 Pixar movie Monsters University.
In 2015, Jaffe appeared in the film, Some Kind of Hate, singing her song "Before You Go," which is on the soundtrack to the film.
In 2016, the Irish comedy TV series Can't Cope, Won't Cope used the song "Glorifyed High" from Jaffe's 2012 record The Body Wins on its soundtrack.
Oculus Story Studio's short virtual reality film, Dear Angelica, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2017, featured a new version of Jaffe's song, "All That Time." Dear Angelica stars Geena Davis and Mae Whitman. Jaffe knew the director, Saschka Unseld, from her experience working on The Blue Umbrella.
Also at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival is Augustine Frizzell's feature film, Never Goin' Back, which Jaffe contributed some original songs. Never Goin' Back stars Camila Morrone and Maia Mitchell ( The Fosters).
Jaffe has toured with Lou Barlow, Norah Jones, Blitzen Trapper, Astronautalis, The Polyphonic Spree, Why?, and Chelsea Wolfe, as well as fellow Texas-based bands Midlake, Old 97's and Centro-matic.
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