Description
Label Review.
2020 album. Also available on CD.
Our Overview.
Jennah Barry is one of Atlantic Canada’s surest sirens. Her music effortlessly moves between folk, country, and indie-rock, and places her at the forefront of women making music as strong as it is sentimental. Hailing from the coastal haven of Mahone Bay, NS, the 31-year-old has a knack for crafting true-to-life vignettes with a twist of honesty that smarts. She has also been careful to surround herself with a stable of collaborators who are consistently elevating her work to its instantly classic status. Her debut album, ‘Young Men’ (2012) showcased Jennah’s uncanny ability to write the world and sing it so assuredly to life and after a 8 year hiatus she is releasing her sophomore album ‘Holiday’.
On the south shore of Nova Scotia, in a house she helped build, Jennah Barry wrote, arranged, and recorded the songs that comprise Holiday,her second album. With Colin Nealis, her “greatest musical partner” and partner in life she made the album in 20- minute pockets, whenever their brand-new daughter would sleep, resulting in a piece of art that’s focused, delicate, of its own time while seemingly of one past.
The title is a hallmark of Barry’s trademark wit and the truth of that progress is found in the gentle mundanity of everyday spiked with big life events like vocal surgery, and a baby. The truth is, Barry simply needed the time. “I make Grand Canyons in my brain I can’t escape,” she says. “The only time I can write about it is when I find a way out. The whole record is about ruminating.”
You can hear the ruminating from the very beginning, starting with the rueful waltz “No Dancer, on which Barry sings, “He sure can move / but he’s no dancer” before a swell of backing singers adds “Board the door / for one more night.” It’s followed by the first single “Roller Disco,” steeped deep in nostalgia, strings, and gentle sadness, a lost AM radio hit. “Ever since I wrote that song I had a visceral idea of how I wanted the whole album to feel,” she says. “I wanted people to feel very far away, and lonely but okay with it.”
Touring UK for Focus Wales and The Great Escape with additional dates in London and more TBA. UK Tour, May 2020
Tracklisting: No Dancer / Roller Disco / The Real Moon / Big Universe / Are You Dreaming / Rocket / I See Morning / Pink Grey Blue / Stop The Train