It’s late afternoon in The Narrows and Brooklyn singer Ashley Strongarm is looking at me, waiting for an answer. Vehicles with modified exhaust systems are speeding down Flushing Avenue, spitting sharp, thick bursts of noise at the surrounding buildings. 

Strongarm’s music could be described, generally, as americana, a blending of folk and southern rock that’s carried by her intimate, singer-songwriter delivery. Warm, sliding guitars guide the records through understated verses that lift into soaring, hypnotic melodies. While her voice is invitingly tender, Strongarm’s lyrics often carry with them the darkness of someone who has discovered that she can renounce but never escape elements that have formed her. 

She tells me, “I’ve always felt like I had the wrong brain in my head.”