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I Don't Know How But They Found Me! - Purple on LP

From the very beginning, fans have fallen in love with Jensen McRae for the

sharp, evocative and clear-eyed songwriting. McRae songwriting is vulnerable,

yes, but it's also powerful for not holding back. Now, I Don't Know How But

They Found Me! Delivers McRae's evolution from a promising young artist to a

bona fide songwriter and star. "The most profound choices of my life," says

McRae, "have often felt like things I did before I was ready to do, and I had to

grow into them." I Don't Know How But They Found Me! #is about what follows

when you have withstood what you thought might crush you. It's about

meeting your limits and learning what you're capable of. "I connected with

the idea that I could've easily collapsed beneath the weight of what happened

to me, but I didn't. I didn't even know it," she says, "but I was bulletproof the

whole time."

Born and raised in LA, Jensen McRae has studied and made music for most of

her life. She attended Grammy Camp in high school and graduated from USC's

Thornton School of Music with a degree in Popular Music. McRae's debut

album, Are You Happy Now?, was written mostly when she was just 21, and was

the first step in developing her now-devoted fanbase. Are You Happy Now?

navigates identity from it's deepest foundations - life as a young, bi-racial Black

and Jewish woman - to it's most personal musings - do I trust you, do I trust

myself. McRae's trust in herself has borne out on multiple occasions, most

recently and maybe most famously in the form of "Massachusetts". McRae

posted a solo verse and chorus, little more than a piece of a demo, and it

caught fire online. Covers, duets, and an avalanche of new fans followed, and

McRae capped the moment with a finished version and a summerlong tour

supporting Noah Kahan.

I Don't Know How but They Found Me! Takes McRae's now-considerable

powers and hardwires them for mass appeal. Stealth single "Savannah" is one

for the yearners. The pulsing, country-adjacent song immediately brings the

best of Phoebe Bridgers to mind, with McRae singing in an acrobatic whisper

over a feather light acoustic guitar. By the time "Savannah" hits it's crescendo,

it's crystal clear McRae is an artist with her own singular power, as piano layers

with guitar and McRae delivers a series of scathing indictments with grit and

conviction: "You swore you'd raise our kids to end up just like you / well you're a

false prophet / and that's a goddamn promise." Meanwhile "Let Me Be Wrong"

is a bona fide anthem, a "buoyant ode to rejecting perfectionism." Built once

again on a simple vocal and acoustic guitar, "Let Me Be Wrong" builds step

over step in it's defiance; guitars layer, drums pick up the pace, and McRae

makes space for everyone's mistakes. When McRae growls "f*** those girls got

everything" it's a punch of both power and vulnerability, begging to be

shouted in unison the biggest possible crowd.

The unusual title of her second album is taken from a line in McRae's favorite

film, Back to the Future. A key protagonist survives a hail of bullets, and the

image resonated with McRae because, she said, she often feels a connection

to some future self guiding her decisions, especially in times of crisis. It also

inspired the album's cover, as McRae stands in a custom fireman's coat with

the job's official marks and symbols stitched alongside abundant ones of her

own. The effect caught her off-guard; "I was surprised how emotional it made

me to be in the fire coat," she says, "forced to stand still, stand powerfully. I

could feel myself becoming a symbol of my own hero's journey." If Are You

Happy Now? was her coming of age, I Don't Know How But They Found Me! #is

Jensen McRae all grown up.