The recording process may have been fragmented, but the results definitely are not. Jarosz assembles diverse elements in a way that feels natural. For one thing, she’s just as comfortable adapting a tragic, old-timey ballad like “Annabelle Lee”— inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s final poem—or a modernized Appalachian ode to secret love like “Run Away” as she is cultivating contemporary singer-songwriter introspection in songs like “Here Nor There” and “Gypsy”.
Both of those songwriting impulses have been with her for a while. As far back as junior high, she was taken with Gillian Welch’s old- timey compositions and Shawn Colvin’s neo-folk confessions. “I have been so influenced by both of those styles of writing,” says Jarosz. “I just try to be the best listener that I can be. I just try to take it all in, and then have it come back out in a new way.”
The fact that Jarosz is dedicated to quality songwriting does not mean she gives any less attention to the instrumental side of things; she plays eight different instruments on the new album. “That’s why I decided to put two instrumentals on there,” she offers. One of those—a stately Celtic-flavored number called “Peace”—she started on mandolin when she was twelve, and completed at college. ”That song,” she says, “is a good example of taking something that was old and me going through my school experience and it changing.”
On the subject of change, the album features more adventurous grooves, and more percussion, which is precisely what Jarosz was looking for. She says, “I know for some purists out there, it’s like, “Why do you have to have drums?’ For me, it’s like, ‘Why not?’” During “Come Around” the drums provide an irregular heartbeat beneath Fleck’s inventive licks.
With the Punch Brothers backing Jarosz on “The Tourist”—and reaching nearly as big and raw-nerved a climax as Radiohead did when they originally recorded the song—Jarosz uses her pleasing, even-toned voice in ways she never has before. And during the haunting “My Muse”, she gives her phrasing a syncopated push.
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