Jolie Holland, the renowned L.A.-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist shares some of her deepest, at times uncomfortable thoughts in song on Haunted Mountain. With one harrowing autobiographical story to tell Holland uses that platform to discuss many forms of oppression from capitalism to colonialism to fascism to patriarchal control. She approaches it from a credible place, having grown up in a cult only to escape and suffer ignominy from that community to the point where she lived homeless for five years. Her friend and collaborator Buck Meek also issued his own album with the same title. The two are intricately connected as Meek is the co-writer and harmony vocalist on Holland’s “Highway 72” and she is the co-writer of five songs on his album. Beyond that though, Holland’s is mostly a trio recording where she plays rhythm guitar, piano, violin, and percussion alongside Justin Veloso (drums, percussion, synthesizers, piano, vocals) and Adam Brisbin (guitars, bass, pedal steel, percussion, synthesizers, vocals).
Holland can be positive and hopeful too, beginning with “2000 Miles Is Nothing,” where she strums gently, singing in her smoky, intimate, almost whispery voice extolling the virtues of love. The electronics that finish the tune take on a weird, industrial Radiohead-like character on “Feet on the Ground” with Holland’s voice floating smoothly over the rhythmic racket, in admonishing tones. The second section features her trademark whistling above the din, emblematic of Holland’s willingness to experiment sonically, in this case running a drum machine through an amp into a vast barn. While taking some sonic risks is admirable, this may be taking it a little further than necessary.
“Highway 72,” the first of three singles, is the most clearly autobiographical track, imbued by Meek’s high-and-lonesome vocals. Although she sings of life on the streets, scuffling for change, and sleeping on concrete, the combination of the voices and her fiddle break, give the tune an uplifting, catchy vibe, nodding somewhat lyrically to Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway.” “Orange Blossoms” has the pollinators in flight narrating a caustic dissertation on human decline. The color of orange in the title should need no explanation. In the title track, Holland describes herself as a rounder her entire life and while most of us may not relate to homelessness and a nomadic lifestyle, we can relate to solitude, finding our sacred place, metaphorically our own haunted mountain from which we refuse to descend.
“Won’t Find Me,” co-written with Emily Clement, is a light, somewhat mysterious folk song, about a sly and quiet escape while “One of You” is uncomfortably honest as it is a harrowing autobiographical and metaphorical account of Holland being brought back to cult after having escaped, only to be treated as a “garish intruder.” Holland delivers offbeat phrasing in the slow country waltz “Me and My Dream,” namedropping Waits, Richards, Willie, and Sahm in the process. It’s another ode to love, beseeching her partner to take that ride out west and be as real as one can be. The yearning and alienation come to the fore in the closer, “For What It’s Worth,” where she uses the scavenger imagery of crows and pigeons, in a weird way reminiscent of how blues singers often used the line “nobody here but us chickens.” She colors the ethereal sonics with the sound of her knuckles on the piano, her trademark whistling, and a chorus of cicadas.
The spare sounds, the casual pace, and the low-fi quality of Holland’s voice proffer a mostly quiet, calming vibe but lyrically Holland is in a far different, emotionally wrought place.
