American multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, producer, and singer-songwriter Jolie Holland has been on the road since the early 2000s, releasing nine of her own albums and collaborating on countless others. Her work has been described as a syncretization of American roots, with rock and experimental elements. She’s been in the studio with Booker T, Lucinda Williams, and TV On The Radio; and shared stages with Mavis Staples, St. Vincent, Elbow, and Big Thief. Her collaborators have included Hal Willner, Kronos Quartet, and Boots Riley. Lou Reed once told her, “I could have listened to you all night.”
Jolie Holland’s Haunted Mountain is a beckoning, confronting place. At once ancient and of the moment, it hums with literary and political interconnections. The songs illuminate states of dispossession and alienation, lust and pollination: a state of reciprocity with our living planet. The record is a creation beyond genre, a refined jewel that refracts as anti-patriarchal dance music and sultry anti-fascist love songs to bats and bees. The album's rendered environments--ranging from sparse acoustic constellations to dense electronic atmospheres--are punctuated with nuanced percussion from cicadas, drums, and even knuckles on piano. These sound-worlds were produced and animated by a trio of multi-instrumentalists: Jolie Holland, Adam Brisbin, and Justin Veloso. Helping to conjure Haunted Mountain, the great magician Buck Meek of Big Thief authors the third verse of the title track, and duets with Holland on Highway 72. In a show of love and solidarity, both Meek and Holland include versions of their song "Haunted Mountain" on their 2023 releases, and both name their records after the song. After all, it is fun to say.
