Since she released her debut album , "An Overview on Phenomenal Nature," in 2021, the New York–based songwriter and musician Cassandra Jenkins has been one of my favourite contemporary recording artists. If anyone else summed up the mood of the times that year better than she did on her single 'Hard Drive', I didn't hear it.

Ostensibly, it would be easy to classify her as a modern indie/dream-pop artist, but once you zoom in, things get far more complicated. A big part of this is how she consistently expands and builds out her singer-songwriter-led work into expansive ambient/new age soundworlds later on down the track. At present, the playbook is consistent: release the ALBUM album, and then follow up by abstracting the core elements of the album into a second release rendered in a furniture music/kankyo ongaku/environmental music form.

This time, 2024's "My Light, My Destroyer" becomes 2025's "My Light, My Massage Parlour", a staggeringly calming suite of piano, brass, woodwind and string-led instrumentals that borrow melodies and rhythms from "My Light, My Destroyer" before gently intertwining them with ambient sounds drawn from Jenkins' everyday life. Opening with the 'Waking Life" esque sensibilities of 'Still Rambling', "My Light, My Massage Parlour" unfolds with the logic of a hazy, lazy daydream, gently tugging the listener through the luxurious, relaxational bliss of 'Only Relaxation' and the nocturnal, naturalistic splendour of 'Omakase of Time', before hitting a magical pocket on 'Delphinium Bliss' which stretches out until the album concludes several songs later.

I like to think you could reverse engineer these songs into the soundtrack of a 'Midnight Diner' style television series about a charming, low-key and inexpensive massage parlour run by Jenkins herself. The key takeout is this is imagination music, and it will take you places if you let it.

"My Light, My Massage Parlour" is out now in digital formats here.

This time, 2024's "My Light, My Destroyer" becomes 2025's "My Light, My Massage Parlour", a staggeringly calming suite of piano, brass, woodwind and string-led instrumentals that borrow melodies and rhythms from "My Light, My Destroyer" before gently intertwining them with ambient sounds drawn from Jenkins' everyday life. Opening with the 'Waking Life" esque sensibilities of 'Still Rambling', "My Light, My Massage Parlour" unfolds with the logic of a hazy, lazy daydream, gently tugging the listener through the luxurious, relaxational bliss of 'Only Relaxation' and the nocturnal, naturalistic splendour of 'Omakase of Time', before hitting a magical pocket on 'Delphinium Bliss' which stretches out until the album concludes several songs later.

I like to think you could reverse engineer these songs into the soundtrack of a 'Midnight Diner' style television series about a charming, low-key and inexpensive massage parlour run by Jenkins herself. The key takeout is this is imagination music, and it will take you places if you let it.

"My Light, My Massage Parlour" is out now in digital formats here.