Explaining the inspiration behind her song “Jump Out,” Ezra Furman uncovers a recurring theme present in her work over nearly two decades. “My whole life as a songwriter I’ve always been writing about trying to get out of a small space, from a narrow place to a wide-open space, usually with no small desperation,” Furman says by phone from a Pennsylvania theater, where she will be performing in a few hours.
It is a profound statement that could easily be applied to a wide-ranging career that includes recording 10 studio albums, compiling two soundtracks for the Netflix series Sex Education and writing about Lou Reed’s pivotal Transformer record. Or it could also reference Furman’s life as a trans woman.
In the press release for Goodbye Small Head, released in May, Furman wrote that the new album is “twelve songs, twelve variations of completely losing control.”
“Some of our most beautiful experiences come at moments of some kind of weakness,” Furman says. “Either we are overwhelmed by the beauty itself or it is beautiful to behold how big the other is and how small the self is.”
That sense of overwhelm is most potent on the previously mentioned “Jump Out,” an insistent song propelled by cello and Furman’s passionate vocals. “That primal ‘my body is in danger’ instinct triggers me very often, sometimes even just by reading the news,” she says. “Going through ordinary life in a terrifying world, you just feel that way sometimes.”
Another highlight on Goodbye Small Head takes a different tack and deals with utter defeat. The Nine Inch Nails–sounding “Submission” is an electronic ballad with an insistent beeping sound that finds Furman singing: “We’re fucked, it’s a relief to say/We’ll see no victory day.”
“I had a really hard time writing that because I was like, ‘No, no, no, I can’t be saying this,’” Furman says. “This is not what I want to say.”
The new album includes tracks that evoke the stripped-down, passionate rock songs of Furman’s early days alongside works fleshed out with a small string section, samples and electronic elements.
“My bandmates, who arranged these songs with me, they are a lot better at that stuff than I am,” Furman says. “They made some of those samples and some of those beats and some parts that I don’t really know how to do, but somehow they figured it out.”
Goodbye Small Head ends with a raucous rock song titled “I Need the Angel,” a cover of a number by Alex Walton. “We just did it in one day, and I got pretty drunk to sing it,” Furman says. “It is to give people a way into the work of Alex Walton. She’s just brilliant. That’s actually far from her best song. It’s just the one that I took. I think I also took it because it is sort of a return to the sound of rock and roll as I played it when I was young.”
Another artist that has inspired Furman is Reed, whose 1972 album Transformer she explored in 2018 for the book series 33 1/3. “Honestly, the reason that I wrote that book and was so interested in that record was because I was confronting some of those same problems that Lou Reed was in 1972,” Furman says. “Just to be queer in public and present yourself to a big audience of people who do not know what the hell your deal is and look on you with some suspicion in a lot of cases or even disgust. … What sparks go off when a queer artist meets the ears of some straight people. I guess writing that was some sort of radicalization or something that was going on with me.”
Ezra Furman and The Ophelias perform at 8pm on Aug. 6 at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $20-$31.80. moesalley.com or folkyeah.com
