Escondida (2004)
12 tracks, 48 minutes
Spotify • iTunes
Country music can be many things, from deeply traditional to almost parodically cheesy and pop-inflected, but wherever it is on the spectrum, the best of it (for me) evokes a very specific emotion: a soft, wistful melancholy, similar to the Lusospherical concept of saudade. This album by Jolie Holland captures that emotion perfectly.
She has a really beautiful voice that she shows off brilliantly here. Gentle but slightly reedy with a really strong Texan accent and a fragile vibrato that she uses very sparingly but always in the right places – it absolutely melts me. As an album, Escondida is mostly in the country realm, but there are blueses and elements of hot jazz in there too, which allows it to go nicely off-kilter sometimes. Wherever she takes it, it’s always with a calm that’s almost lazy in the most agreeable way, but that doesn’t stop her making some interestingly angular and jazzy melodies to her own compositions.
My favourite tracks are two traditionals that Jolie makes her own in different ways. The first, ‘Old Fashioned Morphine,’ is a take on the spiritual and blues standard ‘Old Time Religion’ with lyrics changed to reflect the different rumination. The song is slow, the feel is cool and the melody is lovely, but it becomes extra special when the horns come in. The trumpet and soprano sax weave slinkily in, out and around the layers of the piece, intertwining with each other and Jolie’s voice. It makes for some really interesting comings-together and movings-apart and puts me in mind of C.W. Stoneking at his best.
The other is ‘Mad Tom of Bedlam,' a traditional English folk song. It’s quite popular, so I’d heard it a few times on the London folk circuit before listening to this version, and sang it a couple of times in floor spots myself, too. Now Jolie’s broken it for me. Her version is fast, accompanied only by a trap kit played with brushes and it is so bluesy. She’s not changed it from the English version that much, just a few tweaks to the rhythm here and there, and a few bends to the pitches at the correct moments and that’s it – I can never hear or sing it the same way again. It’s a blues piece now. It just never knew it until Jolie Holland got her voice around it.
Country music is a style that I really enjoy listening to, but I feel like my knowledge base is never as broad as it should be. This is an album I really dig, so if you have any ‘If you like this, then try…’ suggestions, please do chuck them my way. I’m all ears!
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