When Joni says that “pain is the price you pay for loving someone” it’s coming from a place of deep experience. Having relocated to London from LA with her long-term partner, and closest musical collaborator, the singer-songwriter suddenly found herself thrust into a deeply unsettling break-up, one that left her isolated in a brand new country, and also one that pulled back the curtain on a host of unhealthy patterns she had become accustomed to within the relationship. Things I Left Behind is a document of the journey between both the before and after, and is as deeply personal and powerfully moving as such a snapshot suggests. Formed of ten new songs, the album embraces its imperfections, taking its dues from the likes of Feist, Sparklehorse and Daniel Johnston, and is as much a story of personal growth and the courage of convictions, as it is one of heartbreak and turmoil. As the daughter of a submariner, Joni’s childhood spanned moves across the US, Europe, and Asia, and as such she’d always felt like an outsider and often touched upon such themes in her earlier work. Now, with the fresh-faced sharpness of heartbreak and loss, she began to write freely and pointedly about those emotions from the very heart of them.
