Singer Sarah Jaffe on Beating Songwriter's Block [VIDEO]

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When singer-songwriter Sarah Jaffe finished touring last summer, she found herself in a creative ditch. To extricate herself from that musical mire, she picked up some new instruments, which yielded her forthcoming EP, The Way Sound Leaves a Room.

"I couldn't really write and every time I picked up a guitar I would get frustrated," Jaffe says of her writer's block. "So in order to get out of the dilemma I bought a bass and a drumset at a pawn shop and just started writing. What started out as therapy ended up being this group of songs."

Jaffe -- whose first full-length album Suburban Nature established her as a soulful stunner with strummy, rich tunes like "Clementine" -- wasn't all that familiar with her new instruments. However, the unfamiliarity allowed her to bust out of pre-existing patterns.

"The day that I got back with the drumset and the bass I wrote 'Sucker For Your Marketing'," Jaffe says. (You can download that tune below.) "I wrote it pretty quickly. It was kind of a strange thing. I picked up the bass and simplicity of the minimal amount of notes that I knew opened up this door for a melody to lead the way."

Jaffe's EP drops in the fall, but you can check out the above video for a taste of what's to come. The vid is from a DVD that accompanies the EP and contains footage from tour, stage shows and the studio.