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JOLIE HOLLAND
Escondida
Anti 866922
If you like your music sexy, slow, sleazy and a little bit weird then this is the album for you. A Texan chanteuse with her roots in New Orleans Creole, Jolie Holland will be familiar to most listeners through her connection with the Be Good Tanyas' album Blue Horse, although her biog hints that her prodigious talent from the age of seven may be founded in another time and place. Indeed from the first notes of the opening track, Sascha, with its lyrical horn lines and laid-back brush work, Jolie sidles up to the tune in the manner of Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit. The whole feel to the album is that of a world beyond that which we know on these shores. The instrumentation plays no small part in this, with vintage banjo, aluminium upright bass, ukelele, musical saw ... and a producer by the name of Lemon DeGeorge. Just in case you haven't got the picture yet, think Billie Holiday, Julie London, Hoagy Carmichael and Martin Simpson's Righteousness & Humidity with a touch of Zen thrown in for good measure.
Holland's first solo release, Catalpa, was styled as something of a basement tape and Escondida captures that same mood, albeit more saloon bar than cellar, with its muted guitar, back-room piano, whispered vocals and a brass combo that ranges from the sassy melange of Old Fashioned Morphine to the old-timey bugle call on Faded Coat of Blue. On Mad Tom of Bedlam, Holland gives an off-beat performance that oozes suppressed insanity with just the masterful drumming of Dave Mihaly for company. And speaking of madness, Escondida has assured its place in my heart with its liberal use of that most eccentric of instruments, the musical saw. It might set the dog howling at first, but like the whole album, it will shimmer in your soul.
Paul Saunders - June 2004
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A georgeous collection of music. A sultry, smokey voice combined with beatiful melodies and interesting arrangements/instrumentation. No wonder she's even gotten the critical nod from Tom Waits.
Scott, Ottawa, Canada
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Folk & Acoustic
