Robin Holcomb
Robin Holcomb

Born in the '50s in the southern United States (Georgia), Robin Holcomb moved to the University of California to study music, where she met Wayne Horvitz, an important jazz musician, who became her partner. They emigrated together to New York, where thanks to the city's favorable underground scene they could fully exploit their talent.

The self-titled album is the second in the singer-songwriter's career. Released in 1990, it features exceptional musicians from the New York scene, first and foremost her husband, who plays organ and synth. Holcomb instead magically caresses the piano, with a light and delicate touch, of great class, and, of course, sings. Within her aristocratic register, at times meditative, almost oriental, at times cold and hypnotic, lies one of the album's strengths, as well as in the arrangements, delicate and sober, always of splendid taste. Her inspiration fundamentally resides in the female universe of Joni Mitchell, at least in the lyrics, while for the music she embraces multiple genres, reinterpreting them in an intimate way, with a vaguely enigmatic flavor.

The opening track "Nine Lives", with its dreamlike atmosphere, punctuated by a soft and caressing piano, with its nocturnal gait, is an emblematic essay of Holcomb’s abilities. As well as the very delicate "So Straight And Slow", where the protagonist is again the velvety whispers of the piano. All the tracks are elaborate and evolved, never appearing pompous or baroque, but rather maintaining a decidedly austere and aristocratic air, like the following "Hand Me Down All Stories" an improbable and successful hybrid between funky and avant-garde.
The album also intertwines blues elements in "Troy", as well as refined miniatures of '50s jazz-club style in "this poem is in memory of!" a tribute to Meredith Monk. The heart-wrenching folk ballad "Yr Mother Called Them Farmhouses" highlights her great vocal abilities, exalted by the melancholic scratches of a violin and a funeral harmonica. The journey ends with the long psalm of "Deliver Me", an open-heart confession intense and touching, where the artist shows her most fragile side, declaring a moving "save me" among the circular notes of a piano.
This album will remain an unmatched pinnacle in Holcomb’s career, worthy of being included in the select universe of female singer-songwriter masterpieces.