Jolie Holland ‎– Catalpa CD

It's just as well Jolie Holland doesn't work in, say, air traffic control. Her absent-minded drawl is barely intelligible. She sounds as if her attention might be diverted by a passing cricket; at one point, during the hazily magnificent All the Morning Birds, her flow is interrupted by a cough.

However, the qualities that might make her otherwise unemployable are essential here. A self-styled "Texan hobo" and founder of the Be Good Tanyas, Holland has devoured 1920s Texan blues songs and Syd Barratt and emerged with a sound that has some common ground with Robert Johnson, Will Oldham and Nicolai Dunger but is very much her own affair.

These are ghostly songs for never-ending dusty days, Holland's blues-sodden ramblings about political plots and freight trains stretching their way across haphazardly plucked guitars and the creak of floorboards.

Records in this genre can often put hairs on a baby's behind, but Holland has crafted a simultaneously fresh, ageless and timeless debut.

Label: Anti-

Country: Europe

Media Condition: Near Mint (NM or M-)
Sleeve Condition: Near Mint (NM or M-)