We’re barely a minute into saying hello to one another when Sharon Van Etten’s small terrier Lindy decides to introduce itself with a volley of attention-seeking barks. Naturally this all-too-familiar sounding call prompts my own clueless canine into delivering a frantic response, going so far as to rush to a window to see if her possible new best friend is somehow outside on the lawn. Unfortunately for my overeager labradoodle, Van Etten—and her dog—are roughly 3,000 miles away, connecting via Zoom from the kitchen table of her Los Angeles home.
Van Etten—who spent years cutting her teeth and building her musical career as a resident of New York City—moved to L.A. in 2019. The seeds of the address change occurred the year prior when Van Etten was put on retainer for six months for the Netflix supernatural/sci-fi series , in which she had a recurring acting role playing a woman held captive with a group of other human test subjects who’ve all had near-death experiences. (She’s since gone on to have supporting roles in small films such as the 2020 abortion drama and 2021’s end of the world comedy , while also contributing original songs to their soundtracks and appearing as herself in the 2018 revival of ). With plenty of time to kill stuck in L.A., Van Etten ended up recording her fifth album, , during that period. Somewhere along the way Van Etten says, “I fell in love with Los Angeles, this certain neighborhood, and fell in with this really wonderful group of musicians, feeling a sense of community that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.” With her partner, former drummer turned manager Zeke Hutchins, and their young son, Van Etten traded their old Brooklyn apartment for a sunnier, suburban locale. “We found this two-bedroom, one-bath house with a cookie cutter backyard, like Edward Scissorhands landscaped it,” she says. “It has my favorite jacaranda trees