Kayla Janowitz’s music as After Ours rings with a quiet familiarity.  Both conversational and full of spark, the seven songs that make up new album Imaginary Friend trace the varied entanglements of love lost and then grown, into what feels like her most emboldened, candid work yet. Originally hailing from Bergen County, New Jersey, Janowitz was surrounded by a musical family: her mother had performed as a classically trained opera singer in Hong Kong before relocating to America, and she was heavily influenced by her “wizard on guitar” brother who introduced her to eclectic genres such as punk, jazz, alternative, and classic rock.  Her first foray into making music in her teens was performing covers (“I never learned in the traditional way – I learned chords by learning songs first,”) and Janowitz’s original music still incorporates this idea of trusting a feeling first, with sparse, lyric-driven song structures that keeps her instinctual aptitude for songwriting at the forefront.  

Janowitz’s first songs of her own stemmed from a period of health issues in her early twenties, where she had time to sit with herself and “find solace in her love of music”.  Working with indie musician Hether, the pair began on a series of initially long-distance voice memos and ideas that led to her debut self-titled record in 2023.  Melding soulful, seamless production with a quirky, laidback sonic palette, the album remains a capsule of ideas and inspiration from a creatively fertile time in Janowitz’s life where she uprooted to Los Angeles.  Needled in exploration, it’s a sonic imprint of a place she’s already left behind, but not forgotten.