Jack River - Stranger Heart

Stranger Heart is the third EP by Australian singer songwriter Jack River, released in February 2020 via I Oh You.

Stranger Heart is the newest release from Australia’s alt-pop powerhouse, Jack River and her first release since the deluxe reissue of her three-time ARIA-nominated, critically acclaimed debut studio album Sugar Mountain.

Where Sugar Mountain was full of dreamt up love stories from a fictional world River had created in her youth, the Stranger Heart EP is firmly cemented in reality. Written following a demanding touring period, River needed to re-orientate.

She pressed reset and began writing from a desire to make something authentic and true. “I set the intention for myself to walk into the forest of my heart, that I felt like I hadn’t truly faced. And at the end of this EP, I wanted to walk out feeling a little cleansed. Like I’d reclaimed my heart.”

On Stranger Heart, River pleads a case for the heart as a complex and dynamic thing, one that can survive chaos and find the beauty in terror and hopelessness. In the digital age, where inspiration can feel contrived and a search for authenticity often begins and ends with a hashtag, she has drawn a road map for an alternative way to feel and process.

She walked into the forest and came out anew; more bold and true than when she began.

Stranger Heart was produced predominately by Holly Rankin (Jack River) and Xavier Dunn (Cxloe, Graace, Set Mo, Slum Sociable), with the first single “Later Flight” featuring co-production from Styalz Fuego (Peking Duk, Safia, Icona Pop).

This 12” EP is on black audiophile vinyl with a printed inner sleeve, pressed in Germany at Pallas, via I Oh You Records and the Mushroom Group.