State of Gracie

The sessions with Dessner were squeezed in between tour dates. “Aaron and I are catching each other in these little pockets between hectic times,” she told Billboard. “Every day that I live with the music, things start to become a little clearer. There’s something we’re starting to crack that is making both of us feel energized … I’ve just been trying to take the pressure off myself to have to reinvent. I hope that I don’t get in my own way so much.” The track listing for the new album is still unannounced, but Abrams has debuted several new songs onstage, including “Crazy Girl,” “Out of Nowhere,” “Death Wish,” and “It Doesn’t Sit Right.”

Abrams told Nylon she deliberately took her time on the new music, following Taylor Swift’s example. “I am inspired by Taylor in a million ways, but especially by the pace with which she puts things out into the world,” she said. “There’s less pressure the more you release — that’s how I consider it for myself. I want to just keep it coming while I’m in this period of writing as frequently as I am. I think it would be a waste to not be open.”

In January, Abrams told The Hollywood Reporter that she was excited for the album’s impending release. “I’m just very proud,” she said. It’s definitely my favorite music I’ve ever made, and I feel very closely connected to it. I appreciate so much that these albums are time capsules of where I’m at in my life at any given point, but right now it does feel very like me. I hope that whoever finds it, connects with it and that they make it theirs when it’s out one day.”