featuring @rachelbochner
Brooklyn-based artist Rachel Bochner has established herself as a compelling voice in indie-pop, pairing sharp songwriting with emotionally candid stories about love, identity, and self-discovery. On her new album, I Guess A Sure Thing Couldn’t Go Down Gently, Bochner turns inward, unpacking the end of a long-term relationship and the complicated emotions that followed.
Describing the record in her own words, Bochner calls it “a break up album and my dissection of how it happened.” True to its sprawling title, the album refuses to simplify the experience. Instead, it explores the contradictions, guilt, grief, and revelations that can emerge when one chapter of life comes to an unexpected end.
“Written after the implosion of my long term relationship with a man, the album orbits my queer identity’s entanglement with insurmountable guilt, revelatory grief, and the start of complex acceptance,” Bochner explains.
At the heart of the album is a paradox: the pain of losing someone she loved arrived alongside a newfound sense of freedom and self-recognition. While the breakup brought profound grief, it also opened the door to a more authentic understanding of her identity.
“In the midst of this devastating dissolution, I was experiencing a paradoxical truth: immense grief and immense joy,” Bochner shares. “For the first time in my life, I had a glimpse of my authentic self: a euphoric revelation, entirely magnetic and addictive. But how long can one dance around the dissonance until it becomes deafening?”
That tension gives I Guess A Sure Thing Couldn’t Go Down Gently much of its emotional weight. Rather than presenting the breakup as a straightforward story of loss, Bochner examines the conflicting narratives we create when trying to understand our own mistakes, relationships, and the damage left behind.
One of the album’s standout tracks, “Fault Line,” captures that idea through an explosive meditation on guilt and hindsight. The song explores the temptation to reduce a complicated breakup to a simple story in which someone must be responsible for everything that went wrong.
“In the mess that followed my long term relationship’s breakup, it felt easier to chalk it all up to ill-fated nature,” Bochner says. “By reinforcing a narrative that I’m an inherently destructive person doomed to repeat the cycle of hurting those who love me, I offered myself an outlet to pour my distress and guilt and frustration into.”
She acknowledges that the mindset can be seen as “a cop out,” an oversimplification, or an unhealthy expression of guilt. But, as she puts it, “it’s a banger of a song nonetheless.”
Across the album, Bochner embraces that same complexity. I Guess A Sure Thing Couldn’t Go Down Gently is ultimately less about finding a clean resolution than sitting with the contradictions that accompany major change: heartbreak and excitement, guilt and acceptance, loss and the discovery of a more authentic self.
Tour Dates
- September 29 — Schubas — Chicago, IL
- September 30 — Zhora Darling — Minneapolis, MN
- October 2 — Goosetown Tavern — Denver, CO
- October 4 — Kilby Court — Salt Lake City, UT
- October 6 — Hidden Hall — Seattle, WA
- October 8 — The Faight — San Francisco, CA
- October 10 — The Moroccan Lounge — Los Angeles, CA
- October 11 — Last Exit Live — Phoenix, AZ
- October 14 — Three Links — Dallas, TX
- October 15 — Hole in the Wall — Austin, TX
- October 17 — The End — Nashville, TN
- October 18 — Altar at Masquerade — Atlanta, GA
- October 21 — Kung Fu Necktie — Philadelphia, PA
- October 22 — DC9 — Washington, DC
- October 23 — Mercury Lounge — New York, NY
- October 24 — The Rockwell — Boston, MA
- Email: neill@outloudculture.com
- Socials: @neill.frazer
- @neill.outloud
