Jordana mesmerized audiences with her dream-like, genre-bending sound Feb. 23 at The Sinclair, the last stop on the tour for her 2024 album “Lively Premonition.”
The 24-year-old Maryland-raised singer-songwriter moved gracefully between bedroom pop, folk, yacht rock and Broadway-esque ballads throughout the show. “Lively Premonition” brought out her versatility as she wholeheartedly belted, whispered, crooned and gave her all to the violin, guitar and tambourine.
Jordana performed the album in order, starting with the optimistic folk-rock love song “We Get By,” which featured a lengthy violin solo. It was a nod to the instrument she learned as a young child amid lyrics about a prevailing love, including, “It ain’t the picture-perfect life/ No, we ain’t that kind/ But we get by.”
Jordana’s witty, creative lyricism was displayed with the track “Like A Dog.” A pivot from the previous theme, “Like A Dog” contrasted upbeat piano and tambourine instrumentals with an extended metaphor of being as obedient and meek as a pet dog for a potentially toxic partner. The loyalty of “We Get By” turned sorrowful as Jordana sang, “If you hurt me, I would never neglect you / You could leave me for long, and I’d keep hanging on.”
The band took a short break after “Like A Dog” as Jordana explained that she created imaginary characters as inspiration for many of her love songs, including the previous two. She introduced the next song, “Heart You Hold,” as more reflective of her experiences and those of her bandmates, guitarists Ian Michael and Sagiv Rosenstock.
Jordana said Michael and Rosenstock are both alumni of Berklee College of Music, which earned cheers from young people in the audience. Musing that they must feel bittersweet returning to the city of their alma mater, Jordana led the band into “Heart You Hold,” a calm bedroom-pop ode to childhood and growing up.
Jordana then returned to love songs with “This Is How I Know,” a cheery yet lovesick acoustic tune where she sang, “I couldn’t count the reasons you’ve been on my mind/ This is how I know you love me … Tell me, how can I be lonely with my thoughts of you?”
In the short break following “This Is How I Know,” Jordana asked how many audience members who cheered at the mention of Berklee were students, garnering more cheers and applause from the crowd.
After jokingly asking the audience if they like drugs and parties, she launched into one of her more experimental tracks, “Multitudes Of Mystery,” an electro-pop song featuring playful synths and a narrated story of a phone call between a mystery man and two girls he invites to a party. Jordana danced and acted out talking on the phone while singing lyrics about flashy parties and drugs.
Jordana continued the retro synth sound and party theme with “Raver Girl” before transitioning back to folk-pop with the breakup songs “Wrong Love” and “Anything For You.” She paused to introduce the next track, “The One I Knew,” as her one theatrical, Broadway-esque song. The song lived up to its description, focused on Jordana’s vocal range and skill in a heartfelt break-up ballad.
After reminiscing on her tour coming to an end, Jordana finished the album with the aptly named “Your Story’s End,” a bittersweet tale of moving on. Joking about how she found it inconvenient to walk off-stage and come all the way back for an encore, Jordana launched into an indie-pop cover of Steely Dan’s “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.” She followed that with “I Guess This Is Life” from her 2020 EP “Something to Say.”
Jordana finished her performance with what she called “the TV Girl trilogy,” which featured three songs from her 2021 collaborative album “Summer’s Over” with indie-pop band TV Girl. She sang the titular track “Summer’s Over,” followed by the lo-fi bedroom pop “Sweet To Dream.” She closed out with the bittersweet “Better In The Dark,” which is about wishing a drunken nighttime fling meant something.
“Better In The Dark” featured TV Girl’s signature retro samples, with this one pulling from the 1950s radio show “Night Beat” where film noir actor Frank Lovejoy muses, “There are colors at night: the burning red of passion, the angry green of jealousy and the ugly, terrifying black of fear.”
With a final guitar strum and a bow, Jordana concluded the “Lively Premonition” tour after a colorful, vibrant night in Boston.
