The debut album from British singer/songwriter Eve Owen, Don’t Let the Ink Dry, is a work of raw sensitivity and uncontained imagination, brought to life over the course of three transformative years.

During that time, the 20-year-old artist spent her summer holidays writing and recording in New York with The National’s Aaron Dessner, immersing herself in a creative exploration that provided welcome refuge from her sometimes-troubled school life. As she discovered an entirely new sense of freedom and belonging, Owen devised a sonic language all her own: frenetic yet delicate, mercurial yet nuanced enough to capture the most ephemeral of feelings.

Produced by Dessner at Long Pond Studio (a converted old farmhouse deep in the Hudson Valley), Don’t Let the Ink Dry finds Owen embracing her affinity for folk music while pursuing the endless possibilities in electronic experimentation.

“I’ve often felt a bit uncomfortable in myself, and I love how that came out in the music,” says Owen. “I don’t really care for songs that flow just right or have a perfect cadence—I’d rather there be some sort of unnerving element to them. I think Aaron and I are both attracted to weirdness in music, and we instinctively went after that without really even talking about it.”

For his part, Dessner reflects on the first day of their collaboration: “Eve came up to visit the studio for a day a few years ago when she was 16. I thought we would record one song but we ended up working on several in just one day. By the next morning she had written a few more songs based on her experience the previous day. This prolific songwriting continued throughout our work together. Every morning there would be new songs, written sometimes overnight. I’ve been lucky to work with some incredibly talented artists and it was clear to me immediately that Eve was deeply gifted, expressing herself with such force and sincerity on essentially her first proper recording day at Long Pond. I was spellbound.”