“There’s no waking from this frightening dream. You begin to leave. The door shields another bang.”

It’s been ten years since the release of her debut album Nothing To Do With You, and singer-songwriter Irene Peña remains on the scene, delivering a re-issue of “I Won’t Budge”, a story of sheer stubbornness tied with a neat little bow of jangly pop sensibility. It's not far off from the dedication with which Peña has conducted her career in the decade since. She started as she meant to go on, and now it's time to celebrate: the rerelease is out on February 28th replete with new artwork and accompanying storytelling from the artist herself. And it's just the start.

A rare combination of tenacity and talent explains Irene's staying power, and the next 11 months will tell the tale of where she started. Peña will share these stories – track-by-track - along with the telling of her transformation from holding down power-pop support roles in the Southern California scene to news of her forthcoming second full-length album, with Irene at the helm. She's hardly been idle in the time between – her warmly-received 2017 EP Trying Not To Smile is just the highest profile example of a steady string of singles and live performances that've led to Irene being proclaimed “America's Sweetheart” by Carl Cafarelli and Dana Bonn of This Is Rock 'N' Roll Radio, among other honors. And while it's her singsong voice and gift for storytelling through melody that make her special, that determination cannot be understated.

Take just the past year, with the global pandemic coloring every aspect of life. Having planted her roots in Seattle and mastered the solo acoustic set, which has served her well for performing virtually for audiences as the times demand, she's also assembled a pocketful of bandmates, locally and remotely, to continue recording. That's yielded a series of successful singles, including a charity cover of Tom Petty's “I Won't Back Down” (a theme might be detected!), a tribute to the much-missed Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne (her first partnership with Big Stir Records) and an original Christmas tune that was the toast of BSR's Singles: The Yuletide Wave compilation.

Beyond that impressive musical output, Irene also co-founded Musicians Unite! - Together, Wherever as a global community showcase for artists whose live performances had ground to a halt. And by the end of 2020, Peña was not only releasing singles on BSR, she was curating their popular weekly Singles Series itself, and folding the label's community together with Musicians Unite to re-imagine the live concert series that gave the label its start.

Plain and simple, Irene Peña won’t budge. She continues to move on, and celebrates ten years of story-sharing. It's fitting that as she embarks on new work that's sure to thrill the audience she's built over the past ten years, we take a look back at where it all began. We can promise that the monthly retrospective reissuing of Nothing To Do With You will have everything to do with not only where Irene Peña is coming from, but where she's headed, and why you should be along for the ride.