Jolie Holland's is a voice that attempts to transcend the new and encompass the old through the medium of American music. Like Ralph Stanley told her, "I don't even know what bluegrass music is - I consider myself a soul singer." So, yes, its the blues, and the tunes our grandparents hummed on unpaved highways, but its the same songs that coaxed tears out of the punk rock boy at the bar. The ladies swayed, the street kids hooted with bright eyes, the hip hop composer unselfconsciously slipped his hand over his heart, and your momma tapped her foot. New time old time: spooky American fairytales.

Only die-hard Be Good Tanyas fans will recognise the name, but Jolie Holland was responsible for a few of the songs on their debut (most notably "The Littlest Birds" which also appears on this album). For the rest of you out there, what you'll need to know is that - much like Gillian Welch - Jolie has one of THOSE voices that is irresistable to ignore. That 10 bottles of beer and 2 packets of cigarettes before lunchtime sound - the VOICE OF WISDOM - etc etc. Poorly recorded in someone's bedroom and lazily thrown together, this has all the charm of long lost bootlegs of the past - could it be an old Elizabeth Cotton recording? Memphis Minnie? Billie Holiday bootlegs? Fans of Harry Smith's lifetime musical project will be intrigued beyond all hell. They may just fall in love (again!). Music so fragile that you fear playing it in direct sunlight in case it disintegrates.

...She must have thought [her former band] the Be Good Tanya pared-down acoustics were overblown, for her own debut is like a field recording, full of hiss and crackle as she sings her spooky fairy tales over an acoustic guitatherein, of course, lies its back-porch appeal. - Nigel Williamson, Uncut

... it’s almost more like she’s singing from beyond the grave – with lines such as “nobody sings like Mary Sue Bell/nobody prays like Willie McTell/nobody walks a mile in my shoes/like I do.” Of course, she also rhymes “psychedelic presence” with “bioluminescence,” so it’s clear Holland is no stick in the mud revivalist; her music is a curious mix of tradition and experimentation. - Anthony Carew

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Alley Flowers
2. All the Morning Birds
3. Roll my Blues
4. Black Hand Blues
5. December, 1999
6. I Wanna Die
7. Demon Lover Improv
8. Catalpa Waltz
9. The Littlest Birds
10. Wandering Angus
11. Periphery Waltz
12. Ghost Waltz