On brief hiatus between a cut short U.S. tour in support of her new All of Us Flames album and an upcoming string of European dates, Ezra Furman’s mind is on anything but herself. We connected via Zoom the day after Hurricane Ian made landfall not far south of my Tampa home and before its devastation was fully known. Furman was in her Massachusetts home, comfortably casual but focused on going deep on what drove the creation of her latest work. Furman considers her most recent album her least personal even if it weaves in aspects of her Jewish faith and her identity as a trans woman. Its themes and concerns may be her own, but the songs themselves are focused on the collective. Whether it’s the historically persecuted Jewish people, an oft maligned queer community, or the homeless and destitute who at best elicit indifference, Furman finds herself a part of these groups or empathetic towards them.
By way of background, at the same time Furman was budding as a musician in her teens, she was also dealing with issues of finding her own group to fit into. In 2020, Furman shared with Celine Teo-Blockey on thepodcast what it was like to find a place where she fit in. At the time, Furman said, “I was in a Jewish youth group called B.B.Y.O., B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. I hated high school pretty much and had very few friends there and then on the weekends I would see my friends at
