ESCONDIDA is Spanish for "hidden", but never mind the blurred album-sleeve portrait or the elusive path of Jolie Holland's career, there is no hiding her down-home charms.
This one-time Smiths fan from Texas discovered the joys of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Music when hanging out in a Colorado tepee, then co-founded Canadian revivalist trio The Be Good Tanyas.
She turned solo in Los Angeles, where her Catalpa home demos, coughs and mistakes and all, were never intended for public consumption but ended up forming her debut album, championed by Tom Waits and Nick Cave.
Escondida, her first studio release, maintains her beguiling gift for a dreamy, hazy reinvention of old-school Appalachian country blues, oak smoked with Billie Holliday jazz phrasing in self-penned songs of loss, longing and impending darkness.
Hidden no longer in the attic, Holland's "spooky American fairytales" are the stuff of sun-down reflection.
Updated: 08:40 Thursday, July 08, 2004
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