“It’s mostly the voice that lifts you up/it’s mostly the voice that makes you buck/a lot of kids got flavor and some have skill/but if your voice ain’t dope then you need to chill” –“Mostly the Voice”, Gangstarr, Hard to Earn, 1994.

In conversation, there are distinct moments in which the voice of Suzanne Jarvie is momentous, moving, and even entrancing.

Sometimes, it uplifts into sonorous song, soaring into indiscernible heights of captivation, as it does in some of the best passages on her new album mother’s day, which was released today in North America on Continental Records. In locations outside of North America, the LP drops on May 15th.

Other times, Jarvie’s voice diaphanously disappears into wavering melodies of pianos and guitars, seeking shade and solace in the simple sublimity of their beckoning incantations (just check out “Pollonium” on mother’s day).

Then again, there are the times when the artist’s voice is heart-rending, unvarnished, and fraught with a tension born of struggle and, perhaps, something closely resembling acceptance.

“I don’t know if you know anybody who kind of had a tragedy happen really suddenly to them,” the musician mused at one point during a juncture of profound clarity, her words rapidly rushing into each other at the speed of thought.

“It’s kind of like…” She pauses, a deep breath welling within her. “You walk through a door, and that door closes behind you, and you’re in your new life. And, you can’t go back to your old life ever, ever again. And it happens so fast you don’t even have time to think about the fact that your old life is gone, locked away, and you’ll never be in that place again.”

mother’s day is Jarvie’s third album and, to hear her tell it, her third attempt to make sense of, work through, and contextualize some of the deeper disturbances in her personal life. Her first album, Spiral Road, was largely based on the unfortunate experience she underwent when her firstborn sun was stricken from her sky in his adolescence by an untimely mishap that left him in a coma. Her second album, In The Clear, was influenced by his physical recovery and subsequent immersion in a miasma of mental illness. Her latest album is largely characterized by songs based on striving to find and achieve acceptance for some of the many woes that still plague her family over the unhealthy state that her son is in.

The importance of motherhood to Jarvie’s definition of her self—and to her artistry—becomes overwhelmingly evident in as little as a thirty minute conversation. The motif hangs heavily over the new release (peep the artwork for it), as much as it does her outlook on life and very identity as a woman, a person, and a human being. An artist is tasked with taking from his or her life and presenting it in a way in which universal truths from it become manifest—if not to the artist, then to the audience. In that sense, it’s completely unequivocal what Jarvie is getting across with mother’s day.

“This is my life and my artistic environment with my children, who have been the source of the worst and the best of everything I’ve experienced in my life,” Jarvie declared. “It sounds super generic and cliché, but you’re talking about like, living and dealing with a lot of loss and a lot of resistance to loss, and a lot of insane activity that goes on around trying to figure out how do you deal and how do you fix everything. And then, realizing you can’t fix stuff and sort of coming to a place eventually, after many years, of just, a sort of acceptance: just really radical acceptance.”

Sometimes, such thematic issues are overt on the songs of mother’s day. Other times, they’re merely implied, borne on gentle wisps of thought, of winsomeness, or even dated sentiment, perhaps. It is, after all, one of the most difficult realities of parenthood, to say nothing of motherhood, that despite one’s most ardent efforts, one’s offspring, ultimately, is not that child that one engendered. It’s not that tabula rosa to which one instilled so many thoughts, bits of wisdom, precepts, and values. Although spawned from the mother, the child eventually grows into his or her own person, who will end up doing exactly whatever he or she wants—regardless of how that affects, or even reflects, his or her parents.

In many ways, that very same notion applies to albums, such as mother’s day. Regardless of what intentions or motivations that the work grew from, it’s ultimately up to the listener to decide its worth, or simply what to take away from it. After recording mother’s day, Jarvie seems shrewdly aware of both of these facts (as they relate to her children and her album) and, quite perhaps, is all the better for it.

“After my son’s accident, I would say I’ve had 12 years of just grueling, endless, motherhood and parenting,” Jarvie acknowledged. “If I’m not dealing with my older son and all of his problems, I’m trying to support my other kids with all of their normal needs, and some of their not normal needs.”

“A lot of the songs on this record were written in periods where I was feeling very quietly blue and reflective of everything that’s going on, everything that’s happened, and how much I can’t fix. And, how much I have to accept. It’s really a very reflective album in terms of thinking about coming to the realization that you can kill yourself trying to control things that you actually can’t control.”

“The only way through is to let go, and sort of say your truth out loud, and let go.”