Ears Wide Open: Isla June

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Isla June (Photo by Morgan Demeter)
Isla June (Photo by Morgan Demeter)

Isla June is singer-songwriter Jenna Maranga, an NYU Clive Davis Institute grad who pursued the advertising world as her dominant career before realizing she really needed to just take the plunge and put music first. Her first single release as a solo artist, “Pier 59,” was a blissful, dreamy number. Today, she’s grown into a full band with her song “Strange Times, Dark Days” picked up for sync on the CW Network’s “Riverdale” series. Her latest single, “Knew You When” is a full-fledged effort written by Maranga and performed by her and Justin Maranga, Louie Schultz, TJ Russel, Philip Galitzine and Clifford Gilmore; the song was engineered and mixed by Mark Rains and mastered by Adam Haggar. “I wrote ‘Knew You When’ just before quitting my full time day job in advertising. After spending the last four years sitting in an office all day, I was itching to leave and create more space to pursue music,” Maranga says. “‘I Knew You When’ is that bittersweet nostalgia for a time I missed dearly, for a version of myself I missed dearly.”

One wishes to have known her then after listening to the tune. It’s a Cranberries-infused reflection of a reunion of sorts, confronting one’s younger self and the tension of recalling memories yet no longer being recognizable to that past self. Get acquainted with both of them here.

||| Stream: “Knew You When”

||| Stream: “Strange Times, Dark Days” and “Shiny Things”