Jessica Dobson Is Looking For A 'New Depth Of Empathy' In Deep Sea Diver's LP 'Impossible Weight'

Deep Sea Diver has announce its third album Impossible Weight, which will arrive October 16, 2020 via High Beam Records.

The group, led by Seattle's Jessica Dobson (once the lead guitarist for Beck, The Shins and many more), has shared the video for new single "Lights Out", which was created by Dobson herself and displays the guitar tablature for the song as the notes are being played.

Following a year featuring tours with Wilco and Joseph, Deep Sea Diver has released "Stop Pretending", a single born of their weekly live-streamed performances from their home studio during the early period of quarantine

Dobson comments on the new album:

“We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it. I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she’d been struggling with, and started volunteering for Aurora Commons (a drop-in center for unhoused people, most of whom are drug-dependent and engage in street-survival-based sex work).

She explains:

“I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy. They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”