Have I mentioned that 'Jolie' is the name I've given to one of my potted succulents, sitting prettily outside on the balcony? I've definitely mentioned my infatuation with the music of songstress Jolie Holland, in whose honour said plant was named. And what do you know? This latest record of hers, Wine Dark Sea, is probably her best yet.
It's not an album that can be absorbed inattentively, for its charms become apparent only on careful listening - which is not to say that it's inaccessible, but rather an indication of its depths. There are immediately winning moments, like second track "First Sign Of Spring" (something of a throwback to her earlier work) and the back-half trio of "All The Love", "Saint Dymphna" and "Palm Wine Drunkard", while elsewhere a Velvet Underground-esque rumble, buzz and racket permeates (opener "On and On" and "Dark Days" cases in point) through Holland's thornily honeyed folk-country-blues-soul weave, that voice as beguilingly slurred throughout as always. Pretty much all of my favourite music has always stirred something nameless in me, evoking both the familiar and the ungraspable - and so here we are again.
Escondida; Springtime Can Kill You; The Living and the Dead; Pint of Blood.
It's not an album that can be absorbed inattentively, for its charms become apparent only on careful listening - which is not to say that it's inaccessible, but rather an indication of its depths. There are immediately winning moments, like second track "First Sign Of Spring" (something of a throwback to her earlier work) and the back-half trio of "All The Love", "Saint Dymphna" and "Palm Wine Drunkard", while elsewhere a Velvet Underground-esque rumble, buzz and racket permeates (opener "On and On" and "Dark Days" cases in point) through Holland's thornily honeyed folk-country-blues-soul weave, that voice as beguilingly slurred throughout as always. Pretty much all of my favourite music has always stirred something nameless in me, evoking both the familiar and the ungraspable - and so here we are again.
Escondida; Springtime Can Kill You; The Living and the Dead; Pint of Blood.
