Album Review - Stonechild
In the heat of the summer season, with blaring basses and carefree lyrics, comes a euphoric change of pace with the release of Jesca Hoop’s new album, Stonechild. Her lyrics force us to pause a moment and look inward into ourselves, as we realize it’s ok not to be ok in the bright summer sun. She looks directly into the darkness of the world and challenges us to join her.
Hoop’s history is one that reads like a 70s day dream. She was born in 1975 to a Mormon family and grew up singing folk music and hymnals. When she left her family and her faith, she decided to “put her faith into people”, and moved to northern California where she spent time living in nature: under trees, in yurts, and any other variation of wilderness living. By the time she was twenty, she was a wilderness survival guide in a rehabilitation program for troubled teens in Arizona. When she moved to Los Angeles in 2000, she became a nanny for Tom Waits’ children, and with the help of Waits and his wife, was able to meet music industry professionals and released her first album in 2007, Kismet.
Her 2019 album release, Stonechild, is one that is not to be listened to lightly. One must take a moment alone, and melt into her angelic vocals and harmonies. The light instrumentals in each song complement her siren-like runs. Her first song is one that proclaims that humans instinctively go looking for “dark” whenever the world is not in our favor. She sings “we go look for dark, to get dark, to get free of the feeling.” To get free of the feeling is a line that rings very true in many of us, as when the world seems to get dark around us, it may be better to turn off the emotions of despair and fear, and to simply go numb. This intro is one that sets the groundwork for the rest of the album. Each song forces listeners to reflect on the perspective of themselves and the world around them.
One of the songs, “Old Fear of Father” paints a picture of femininity that is dated but present in the mind of women to this day. It tells the tale of a woman talking about her children, favoring her sons over her daughter, as the daughter only has the future of a woman like herself: one who must “know the hand that feeds her.” By Hoop singing about this, it spurs reflection in all of us, and brings forth the sad reality of the gender roles of the past. She does not sugarcoat this in the slightest and continues to sing about the realities of motherhood.
Women in folk are not known to shy away from difficult topics of life, and in a similar fashion, Hoops disregards any disposition one may have towards a challenging subject, and chooses to highlight it in a way that forces you to listen. This album is one that deserves a large spotlight that brings people together, as well as into themselves.
Jesca Hoop is currently touring in Europe.