This week's PBS Feature Album is Deep Is The Way, the second full-length album from singer/songwriter Gena Rose Bruce. The album chronicles Bruce's fraught path back into the light, as she processes death and inner turmoil to emerge with a newfound state of strength and resilience.
Following the success of her acclaimed AMP-nominated debut Can’t Make You Love Me, Bruce had international touring planned, including stops in the US for SXSW, the UK and Japan. Then the pandemic flattened Bruce’s months of preparation, doubts about her future and artistic worth crept in. Her journey into balancing ambition and self-worth shows up on the burning slow-build track ‘Future’.
Housebound, with the claustrophobia of lockdown setting in, Bruce began identifying with characters in the books she was reading, like April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road – an actor whose ambitions are dampened by domesticity. Frustrations that made their way into the aching album track ‘Captive’.
Deep Is the Way is Bruce’s outlet for the unrelenting emotions; but writing only gets you part of the way. It’s only through professional help and embracing the strength in her long-term relationship – found on the yet to be released delicate piano tribute ‘Love’; and on ‘Harsh Light’, with its jagged Crowded House-like guitars and post Paul McCartney swing – that Bruce has found herself back literally on solid ground.
Tune in all this week to hear tracks from Deep Is The Way, and PBS Members have the chance to win a copy of the album on vinyl via this Tuesday's e-newsletter, so make sure you check your inbox!
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TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING THIS WEEK
Surprise Chef - 'Pash Rash'
Mo'Ju - 'Money'
Barney McAll - 'John Coltrane ft. Gary Bartz' (Sampology re-mix)
Rrose - 'A Row of Cylinders'
Jah Wobble - '14 Towards Putney Heath'
Steve Gunn & David Moore - 'Over the Dune'
John Cale - 'Noise of You'
Mudhoney - 'Almost Everything'
NERVE - 'Akimbo'
Undecisive God - 'SIEV X Revisited'
