Jolie Holland to release new effort in October

Jolie Holland, the lauded performer with a voice described by the Village Voice as “sultry and sweet, despairing and lonely,” will release the Living and the Dead on October 7th.

Co-produced by Holland and Pakistani-born Shahzad Ismaily, the Living and the Dead’s production credits illustrate the collaborative improvisation that went into making her fourth record. M Ward (She & Him, My Morning Jacket) lent his production skills to a song and also played guitar on two tracks, multi-instrumentalist Ismaily added sounds via bass, moog, shruthi box and a duck call among others, famed guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello) appears on several songs and former bandmate Samantha Parton (Be Good Tanyas) sings on the final track. The results bear the evocative moodiness that has always existed in Holland’s music, but also capture the rollicking creativity of the studio environment, highlighting a new influence on her songwriting that Holland explores for the first time on this release.

“I love rock and roll, but I think it was hard for me to trust the motives of it for a while,” says Holland. “Then I started listening to Neil Young and Daniel Johnston and it kind of allowed me to become inspired by that kind of sound again. I hadn’t really written rock songs before,” she continues. “On this record I felt like I really surrounded myself with some incredibly creative people.”

Some of the songs on the Living and the Dead were performed at Holland’s recent residency at Union Pool in Brooklyn NY. The acclaimed appearances gave her new hometown of Brooklyn the chance to delve into the dust bowl loneliness of Holland’s songwriting, her rare and distinctive approach to singing and her elusory Texas-by-way-of-San Francisco accent.

Tracklisting for the Living and the Dead:
1. Mexico City
2. Corrido Por Buddy
3. Palmyra
4. You Painted Yourself In
5. Fox In Its Hole
6. Your Big Hands
7. Sweet Loving Man
8. Love Henry
9. The Future
10. Enjoy Yourself