ROBIN HOLCOMB - The Big Time

"The Big Time" is the fifth album by the forty-eight-year-old Holcomb, arriving a full six years after the widely acclaimed "Little Three", a kind of female folk Köln Concert, on which she showcased her immense talent performing solo on piano and here and there on voice.

The new work finds her back in the studio with a band of excellent musicians: her husband-producer Wayne Horowitz on hammond organ with his full band, Tim Young on guitar, Keith Lowe on bass, Andy Roth on drums, joined, as the icing on the cake, by Bill Frisell (another Nonesuch standard-bearer, who had brought Robin in for his Nashville) on guitar.

The result is a record of remarkable emotional impact, inspired and engaging, one that will have to be reckoned with when it comes to drawing up the list of the best albums of 2002.

"Pretend" opens the album in a furious mood: the protagonist is living an unhappy love affair in which she feels undervalued ("…I need someone to call me baby…") and screams out her unhappiness. The hypnotic piano, distorted guitars, a dry rhythm section and a dark, funereal organ make for an atmosphere charged with unmistakably palpable tension.

"Like I Care" is a song of indescribable beauty: steeped in a melancholy sweetness, it wins you over with its slow, aching pace. Holcomb's vibrato-laden voice and Frisell's gorgeous solo are the stuff of chills.

"Sit Right Down" is a brief piano-and-voice piece that harks back to "Little Three" and recalls certain digressions of Keith Emerson. "You Look So Much Better" is once again charged with tension. "A Lazy Farmer Boy" is a traditional rearranged in Irish-pub style: a flawless performance, with Eyvind Kang's viola up front and another great guitar solo. "If You Can't Make The Curve" wins you over gradually: its highly distinctive melody takes more than one listen, but it eventually gets under your skin. "Engine 143" is a cover of a song by A.P. Carter, whose protagonist George dies in an accident aboard a locomotive: over a rhythm built to reproduce the frantic sound of the train speeding down the tracks, the guitars move nervously (Frisell's electric and Young's acoustic). "I Tried to Believe" tells of a betrayed love with great irony: the subject matter is sad, but the arrangement, all horns and backing vocals, is cheerful and catchy in perfect New Orleans style. The title track is another song of great impact, arranged in choral fashion: every instrument blends perfectly with the others, once again highlighting Horowitz's careful production.

Robin Holcomb isn't young and beautiful, she doesn't shake her hips and she has no music videos floating around the airwaves, but she effortlessly outclasses nearly every singer out there — just slip "The Big Time" into the player and let it play.

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27/10/2006