In The Studio: Rachel Fine

Rachel Fine’s debut album Own Your Own is an 11-song collection that pulsates with dark confessions and haunting melodies that everyone can relate to. Track after track, Rachel delivers what listeners have quickly come to realize is her signature intimacy dancing over a brooding backbeat. Heartfelt vocals melt, dripping onto an undercurrent of dark funk: rhythms entice, harmonies seduce and lyrics confide. Own Your Own is birthed from a love of poetry and exploration of groove. Although often referred to as electronica, Rachel’s ragged, edgy sound embodies a variety of genres that has earned her comparisons to such divergent artists as Jill Scott, Portishead, Cat Power and Fiona Apple. Rachel is responsible for all the lyrics on the album and draws from deeply personal experiences from which they emerge. She said in an August 2009 interview, “I write poetry, first and foremost. I never force it, I never sit down and say "ok, I should get a song written today”. I write when there’s no other choice, when I am so emotionally charged that to not write would kill me. And in the placement of each carefully weighed word, I release a little piece of that energy. When the song, which has written itself really, is irrevocably complete, I am free. Free from that experience, from that emotion, from that relationship, from those ruminating thoughts, from that space. And as [producer/composer Timothy Schletter] and I find the groove that best fits that chapter, and as he gently takes over and paints the complete auditory picture, I feel overwhelmingly relieved because I really can let it go. And I pray that in my brutal, awkward, embarrassing honesty, I can intimately connect with one listener who has, to this point, felt utterly misunderstood by the world. That’s why I write and why I sing.”