(2021) Natalie Jane Hill - Solely


Review:
It’s hard to overstate how intoxicating “Solely” is. The title track to this second album from threads a rich vein of pedal steel through its flurries of picking, putting a heady, disorienting drone under an already hypnotic pulse. Little crescendos of rolled cymbals build up under the ends of phrases, and Hill’s voice, ever agile, ever precise, picks up a shadowy double in the warm, bubbling choruses. The main focus, as always, is on Hill herself, her tricky, fluttering phrasing and breathy octave leaps, her rapid, fluid cascades of guitar. But this time, she’s surrounded by velvety sonics, ambient hum and other instruments, the throb of cello, the plink of glockenspiel turning up in the interstices of her songs. You might remember Natalie Jane Hill makinga gorgeous, scrubbed-bare acoustic folk album called Azalea last year, a record that showcased intricate picking and a strikingly expressive vocal style. A Texas native, she had relocated to Appalachia then; the record was self-reliant, idiosyncratic and very, very promising. For this album, she’s moved home to Texas and found a cadre of like-minded musicians. A good portion of the defunct indie band Voxtrot appears in one guise or another and Mat Davidson of Twain plays a variety of instruments, pedal steel, fiddle, Wurlitzer and Casio. Bob Hoffnar, an Austin session pro with a long list of credits, stops by for some additional pedal steel. Where Azalea’s songs were starkly simple, Solely’s music buzzes with layered resonances. You can hear this best on the lovely “Orb Weaver,” with its swooping strings, its lucid glowing keyboards. Hill sings in a loose, blues-y way, the ease of her melody floating over complex webs of guitar notes. A pedal steel arcs through the background, laying melancholic swaths through prickling staccato picking. And then just after the halfway point, the singing stops, and the guitar, pedal steel and cello take over, dancing in and out of prominence in an eerie, reverberating way. The instruments get another moment late in the track, and it is just as lovely, just as hard to pin down. Azalea was a very good album, but it sounds a bit thin next to this one, like a pencil sketch next to a shaded, cross-hatched charcoal drawing. Solely opens up beautifully, framing Hill’s songs in more depthful, resonant settings. — dusted





Track Listing:
1.Euphoria 03:41
2.Little Teeth 03:29
3.If I Were A Willow 02:26
4.Plants And Flowers That Do Not Grow Here 03:06
5.To Feel Alone 02:14
6.Solely 03:35 video
7.Pretty View 02:49
8.Orb Weaver 04:27
9.Listen To Me Tomorrow 03:16
10.Better Now 03:41


Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk
Country: USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits