Today, Nashville-based singer/songwriter Jesse Correll has released his new LP “Inner Shibori,” produced by Correll and Anne McCue and featuring contributions from artists like Anna Tivel, Kyshona, Jason Eskridge, Freddy & Francine’s Bianca Caruso and Lee Ferris, and more. Inner Shibori is his fourth record since 1994, and his second release after a 15-year hiatus from music.
Oozing luxury and longing, the album brims with sophisticated and tastefully sentimental songs, its smooth musicianship recalls the lonely balladeering of Frank Sinatra and Chet Baker – the type of recordings made at Capitol Studios in Hollywood during the 1950s and 1960s. The songs are also interwoven with threads of Americana, R&B, soul, and folk, recalling contemporary artists such as Ray LaMontagne, Jacob Collier, and Madison Cunningham.
Shibori is a traditional Japanese resist-dyeing technique wherein a pattern is made by binding, folding, or compressing a natural fabric, dyeing it, and then releasing the bind and pressure to reveal its pattern. When the fabric is returned to its flat form after dyeing, the design that emerges is the result of the bound and tied three-dimensional shape. The cloth sensitively records both the form and the pressure; the “memory” of the tied shape remains imprinted in the cloth.
“The technique spoke to me. We endure a lifelong process of unfolding, unbinding, unstitching, and unblocking. Little by little, we see that what we thought were stains, are intricate patterns; the design of unseen hands,” Correll shares. He explores this parable on his latest album, Inner Shibori, a timeless and elegantly expressive record that feels like a singer-songwriter album draped in torch-song finery.
A Berklee graduate and a lifelong musician, Correll was based in New York, then followed his muse to Music City, where he blossomed as a songwriter, a member of the Nashville music community, and a popular podcaster. In parallel, Correll endured personal hardships that seemed and felt like a bottom–yet became a turning point of self-reflection, acceptance, and even a love rebirth.
This journey became an inner Shibori experience for him, and he processes it on his album. “It was like a breakup with my former self. I had been running from old stuff – like early abandonment – and I needed to address them to move on. There is definitely a story of the greatest love ever followed by the worst pain ever,” he says.
Reflective, redemptive, and triumphant, Inner Shibori simmers with classic R&B, heavenly harmonies, and jazz-tinged soul-pop. “This album felt like a homecoming,” Correll explains. “I needed all of those years of being lost to be able to fully express myself as a musician; as a human being. Making this record, and finding my home in the Nashville music community, has been a peak experience that I will never forget.”
INNER SHIBORI TRACKLIST
Go Deeper
One More Time
Begin Again, Again
Life
An Icy Cold
Backyard Thursday
Fetch The Water
Inner Shibori
I’ll Just Keep Tryin’
Dusty Sweetness
Hope Like Adrenaline
Slow Accepting
Worst Of Both Worlds