12/16/2019
Tennessee songwriter Jennifer Jane Niceley pens jazz-hued folk with deep roots in southern soul and western twang — like a campfire ballad sung as sweet and slow as a torch song, with a singular voice that can transcend time and place. Her lyrics bare longing and regret, evoking poetic dreamscapes of twisted trees, summer storms and the scent of freshly tilled soil… In November 2019, Tone Tree Music re-released Angels, Demons, Red-Tails Hawks, the follow up to 2014’s lush and dreamy Birdlight. Recorded in Nashville with multi-instrumentalist Eric McConnell (Loretta Lynn, Todd Snider, Sierra Ferrell), this latest offering finds her looking west and traveling light, drawing still on her chief inspirations — the land and the human heart. An EP of new material, recorded with a full band in the mountains of Colorado, is set to greet the world in early 2020.
"Upon first listen, Jennifer Jane Niceley’s new album Angels, Demons, Red-Tail Hawks is soothing and ethereal, like a dreamy bucolic breeze. But the more you dig in, there’s a bittersweet undertone: Tracks such as “Wing to Wing” and “Desert Plain” explore the inevitable solitude of the human condition, even within the parameters of interpersonal relationships. Niceley’s singing evokes a yearning, however understated, to make peace with that solitude, to find the balance between self-reliance and opening your heart to another. Her lovely, gossamer voice walks a fine line between selfpossession and vulnerability, at times suggesting what it might sound like if Portishead’s Beth Gibbons made a country album. The album was recorded by Eric McConnell at his home studio in Nashville, where he also engineered Loretta Lynn’s Jack-White produced Van Lear Rose. McConnell plays a variety of instruments to augment Niceley’s acoustic guitar, but never clutters the proceedings, and the result is simultaneously gentle and haunting." --Jack Silverman (of Nashville Scene and Premier Guitar)