Jess Hill's CD-Release Party

After a very nice set of experimental and minimalist organicky orchestrations by Tarran the Tailor with a little help from his lady friend, a quiet (and smallish) Jess Hill and her guitar took the stage. Immediately personable, she softly spoke into the mike as if she were whispering to her closest friend and she sang as if she were playing to an open field of dying flowers at twilight.

Jess Hill's voice was spot on, barely trembling in all the right places. She definitely had a folky Cat Power or a Beth Orton thing going on, which was well complimented by her competent guitar skills. She was also joined on stage by five other young musician guys who quite impressed me with their mature restraint. It's pretty hard to find good musicians with a good indie-punk aesthetic who can happily throw in a rather brief, rather quiet, rather effective contribution to a song who's focus remained to be the singer and her guitar.

Hill's brand of folk music isn't a new one. Sure we got some happily tremolo'ing organ riffs here and there, and some atmospheric sqeaks and rumblings from the stand up bass and guitars, but the music largely stays ensconced in its slow to midtempo folk roots, though I did particularly like a song which had a groovy country twang to it.

At any rate, the crowd responded with genuine warmth to Hill and the band. Maybe cd release parties are the way to go, since you can ride the celebratory friend vibe as you check out the goods, and this time around the goods were delivered, in their dusty, lost and recovered, worn and torn package.