Glory Days: Former Nymph Inger Lorre is Back with First Album in 24 Years
Glory Days: Inger Lorre has just released a new album appropriately titled Gloryland, and for a relatively small but not insignificant portion of the music-loving population, that represents a bona fide event.
Her band, the still criminally under-heard Nymphs, released one self-titled, exceptional album in 1991 before calling it quits in ’92. Prior to this new record, her sole solo studio full-lengther was 1999’s frankly mind-blowing Transcendental Medication. So that’s just two albums, and Gloryland makes three. It’s reasonable to say that Lorre is not prolific.
She’s had her reasons. Lorre is open about the fact that she’s suffered horribly with depression and crippling social anxiety, and those issues have led her to self-medicate for periods of her life. Speaking to Lorre on the phone shortly after the release of Gloryland, she tells us that her social anxiety in particular still plagues her, but her music helps and the new album has been an invaluable outlet.
“Everything has gone so insane,” Lorre says. “Suicide is the number one cause of death for people under the age of 54. This record was a hard birth. Transcendental Medication came very easily. This one was like, forceps, you had to have a cesarean and oxygen, it was very hard getting it out because it was completely stripped down, completely raw. All these songs were either written on just a regular piano or an acoustic guitar, and I felt like the world needed some hope. I’m not Mother Theresa, and I’m kinda like the dumbest person in the class, usually. I need a dunce cap, sit in the corner, I don’t know what I’m doing, but the world needs some hope, so this is my attempt at giving the world some hope.”
She’s being unfair to herself, and that’s a theme during the interview. She gives herself an incredibly hard time, because Inger Lorre is far from dumb. Her lyrics betray a rare insight into the human spirit that transcends rock ‘n’ roll or punk songwriting. She numbers Patti Smith and Joe Cocker among the musicians that she claims have saved her, and that makes sense. Lorre, Smith, and Cocker share a gift for interpreting emotions, often pain, and offering them back to us in song form. Not just singing about pain or love or misery or grief – many people can do that. But actually translating the deep feelings into lyrics and melodies. As a result, her fans feel genuinely heard by Lorre.
That’s why it sucks so bad that her album releases are rarer than hen’s teeth, but Gloryland has been worth the wait. It’s a beautiful, devastating slab of work, taking the listener on a journey through pain and grief (the latter notably on “Song for Elliott Smith,” about her friend), but vitally, it shows you the light at the end of the tunnel. Rather, it carries you there. The album ends with a meditative piece called “Om Gan,” followed by the acapella, gospel-ish title track. By then you’re utterly drained, but ready for a new day.
“(It’s about) survival, and just trying to hold on and show people that it can actually get this dark, as dark as it possibly gets, and sometimes if you go low enough you will break through to the light. I believe that’s what I was experimenting with and trying to get to here. No matter how dark it gets, there is hope.”
You sense that Lorre needs that hope as much as we, the listeners, do. Her form of self-medication may have changed, but music is a powerful therapy, and Lorre spells out the fact that it has saved her life.
“I believe that we’re living in a time of such insanity right now,” she says. “So for me, we need to save ourselves and music is the only place for me to hide. It’s another language. It’s a language of the heart. It’s hard for me to talk about because I feel like I’m so naive, in every respect. Just when I think I have it figured out, something crazy like a war will break out. I’m searching for spirituality. I’m searching for meaning. Like every other human, I’m just trying to search and survive.”
While Lorre is undeniably gifted at interpreting humanity into song form, she doesn’t seem to have any read on her import to her fans. Again, we’re not talking about arena-filling numbers here, but the people that do love Lorre’s music really fucking love it.
“I remember when I was suicidal, it was actually Jeff Buckley who said, ‘What’s your favorite song?’” Lorre says of her friend (Buckley collaborated with her on the Transcendental Medication album, too). “I was like, ‘Right now, I dunno, ‘Passenger’ by Iggy Pop.’ He said, ‘When you put ‘Passenger’ on, does that not make you feel better?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t you see that you’re doing that for another person?’ I couldn’t see it. I still don’t see it. Which is why I keep driving and trying.”
Gloryland is out via Kitten Robot Records, which means that Lorre has teamed up with label heads Josie Cotton and Paul Roessler (Screamers), and she’s on a roster alongside both of those, as well as the impressive likes of Tombstones in Their Eyes, Crowjane, Kira, and Hayley & the Crushers.
“Paul truly is a genius,” Lorre says. “After I did the basic tracks, and I did my acoustic tracks, and I brought in other musicians, I’ve never said this to any producer, but I said ‘Do whatever the heck you want, go for it.’ I’m like ‘Step all over it, do whatever you want,’ and he did his Paul-isms everywhere. He actually brought tears to my eyes. I’m so grateful for the things that he did. He’s taken my music to another level, yet we did this record so stripped down. So it’s a real paradox. How did he add so much by taking everything away?”
Whether Lorre will tour or maybe play a few shows in support of this album remains to be seen. She doesn’t feel quite ready yet, and that’s fine. We can enjoy the album as is.
“I’ve been through a lot of trauma,” Lorre says. “I think I was hiding and numbing myself with substances to get through that period. I do not promote them – I’m telling you, as someone who’s been there and done that, it’s not the way. You’re just extending your pain. Go through it, get rid of that shit, and face your pain. It’s really difficult at age 59 when you’ve been so numb for so long to step out of it and into the sunlight. Sometimes, when you’ve been in the darkness like I had been for so long, the sunlight is so bright that it hurts your eyes and that’s right where I am. That’s why it’s hard for me to play shows and be around people. I have the kindest fans. They understand. ‘All right, Inger’s a little mental, we love her anyway.’”
We sure do!
Glory Days: Inger Lorre’s Gloryland is out now.
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