Before She Can Help the World, Esme Patterson Must Help Herself

On the cover of her third solo album, We Were Wild, Esmé Patterson stares out against a bright-yellow background, head tilted and lips parted. She's wearing a collar and leash held by someone out of frame, and appears to be naked.

"I got so much shit about it," Patterson says. "The people that are upset about it don't realize the prejudice that they're bringing to the table. The only way that would possibly be offensive is if someone else put me in that position, and by being offended by [the cover], they've removed my agency."

In a way, it's fitting that the bold cover received such a reaction. The music on the subtly rambunctious We Were Wild finds the Portland-based artist—formerly of Colorado indie-folk band Paper Bird—at her most direct and candid, showcasing her deep roots in the canon of American songwriting while forging her own modern path through the pop world.

It's also not the first time Patterson's work has been misunderstood. On her previous album, 2014's Woman to Woman, she wrote lyrics from the perspective of fictional women in songs by men, including Elvis Costello's Alison and Townes Van Zandt's Loretta. Though the project was an open-ended experiment, Patterson says overeager critics now look for a feminist angle in all her work. Patterson proudly identifies as a feminist, but says her primary purpose for making music is personal.

"I happen to be a woman talking about my life," she says. "That doesn't make it feminist. If a man's talking about his life when writing a record, no one's going to say, 'Oh, this is a very masculine record.' They'd just be like, 'Oh, it's a record.'"

The interval between her last two albums was one of trial and change for Patterson. On We Were Wild, she is speaking from her own perspective again. Part of breaking out of the bindings of a character meant not confining herself to roots music, the genre she is most associated with. We Were Wild is equally rowdy and delicate, with Patterson exploring the feminine and grisly sides of her voice. She powers through bopping rock 'n' roll, gentle pop and slide-guitar country with graceful ease. On the swaggering "Francine," Patterson essentially inverts the concept of Woman to Woman. "It actually is a song about objectifying a woman," Patterson says with a laugh. "Which I don't think is a bad thing, as long as you leave room for someone to be more than that object."

Talking to Patterson, it's not hard to see how she might feel constrained by the "feminist songwriter" label. But it's not hard to see why she inspires pride in her listeners, either. Music history is overpopulated with literal and figurative male voices, so it means something to have more feminine voices staking out territory in the American songwriting tradition who aren't afraid to speak up—even if the person she's speaking for is, first and foremost, herself.

"You know when you're on an airplane and they're giving you the safety speech and they always say, like, 'Put your own oxygen mask on before helping someone else'? That's why I make art," she says. "I'm kind of putting my own oxygen mask on and hoping that after that point, I can help someone else."

SEE IT: Esmé Patterson plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Frankie Lee and Oscar Fang and the Gang, on Wednesday, June 29. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.

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