Meet the wonderful Indianna Hale, a San Francisco singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist that mixes spaghetti western and Twin Peaks-inspired sounds with fuzzy guitars and lyrics that sound like if Lana Del Rey came from West Marin instead of West Hollywood. Indianna just released her fourth full-length album, Yesterday's Glitter, and recently dropped by West of Twin Peaks Radio for a conversation with MJ about the record.

MJ: You grew up in Southern California but moved here 20 years ago. Why did you stay here versus going back down to Southern California?

Indianna: Southern California never felt like my home, even when I was living there. I was a high school goth in Orange County, just like, "ah, it's too hot!" [laughs] And I love the Bay. I found such a great musical community here and basically have been playing music with this very similar community -- like some threads go all the way back -- for 20 years. I feel really lucky to have the people I have here and their support. I play in five or six bands and many of those people have or are playing in my band as well, so we just sort of share musicians and ideas and good times.

When did you start working on the songs that make up 'Yesterday's Glitter'?

Actually, it was a while ago. I don't know how much I should reveal about how long ago [laughs] but it was done pre-pandemic, about 2016 to 2019. For my last album [of new material], I had all of the songs finished and I went in and got it all recorded in a few weeks. For this one, we did it differently. I would write a song or a handful of songs, then go and bring them to [my partner and collaborator] Jason Cirimele, and we'd record them one by one. I was worried that I was going to have too many different genres and it would't be a cohesive album, but I think there is a line through it.

I'm really shocked to hear these songs were recorded piecemeal because I found the album's sonics to be so cohesive, perhaps because of the throughline of the extraordinary guitar work.

I recorded them with Jason, and he's such a good listener and such a good musician, but he really gave me a lot of space to figure out how I wanted it to sound, and he listened to my vision, like very, very well and also coupled that with having a wealth of ideas and inspiration himself that he brought to the table. We just workshopped every single one. What works really well about our musical relationship is we have a lot of really similar inspiration and music that we draw from and, even when there are differences, they weave together really, really well. So we would often have like the same idea for a song that was kind of bizarre like, "we should have fuzz on the bass on the chords of this song," and you know, not very many people do fuzz bass chords on songs, or at least I don't hear it as much as in the music I listen to.

"Rainy Cliffs" stands out. Jason used this really cool -- I think it was an empty whiskey bottle -- and his roommate had just moved out, so he had this really empty room with tons of reverb and he went in there and recorded this sound. It almost sounds like a woodblock but also like something out of your dreams.

Is that the one with whistling on it too? Who's the whistler?

It's me, I did that, but it took, like, 30 takes [laughs] because I would start smiling and you can't smile and whistle at the same time! But I nailed it. I've tried to do it live and it never works because I'm just having too much fun when I play.

Once upon a time, you did a cover of a 'Twin Peaks' song, and "Rainy Cliffs" strikes me as very 'Twin Peaks'-esque, too.

Yeah, thank you. We actually cited that as an inspiration when we made the music video as well.

When did you first pick up a guitar?

My partner at the time and my best friend both bought me a guitar for my 21st birthday. They were like, 'It's ridiculous that you don't have a guitar yet!' [laughs] I was like, 'I agree!'

You started off musically as a vocalist, is that correct?

Yeah, I was in choirs and I took voice lessons for about 10 years. I majored in classic voice in college. I grew up playing piano, that was my first instrument. I played keys in my friends' bands in Orange County before I started writing music of my own.

Since you were studying classic vocals in college, what kind of music were you listening to then?

I listened to, like, old punk. I remember meeting up with my friend Tom and being so excited that he was listening to Crass in his car on the way home from, you know, this classical training we're taking.

So you're listening to punk and studying classical voice. How did you end up in the cosmic dream-folk/pop world?

Now, I listen to a lot of really old country, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson and that Marty Robbins-era of music, but I also listen to a lot of Galaxie 500, and when I was much younger, I loved The Cure. I think I just take from a lot of different places and what comes out is what I've heard that I resonate with...but I have such a hard time citing my references or my inspirations, musically. I love 80s music. One of the songs I wrote, "Wild One's Game," that song was like, 'what would Chris Isaak meets Kate Bush sound like?' I have inspiration from all kinds of different areas that just comes out, depending on whatever I feel connected to at the time, what I feel in my heart, and what I'm trying to create -- that calls upon [different inspirations] in order to express itself.

Listen to MJ's conversation with Indianna Hale in full here. Indianna reveals the long list of local bands she plays with, talks about how her relationships past and present inspired the lyrics on the new record, and share plans for an upcoming tour. Follow Indianna @indychilfor show updates!