Jesca Hoop's debut album Kismet (2007) stands out as one of those rare examples of a newcomer getting it right on the first try and winding up with one hell of a tough act to follow. September 2023 sees Kismet's 16-year anniversary and to celebrate, Hoop is reissuing Kismet on vinyl paired with The Complete Kismet Acoustic, a live stripped back version of the album.

While Kismet brims with studio wonders and the absolute joy of diving into the medium with musical giants that inaclude Stewart Copeland, Matt Chamberlin, Blake Mills, Shawn Everett and Tony Berg, The Complete Kismet Acoustic brings us to the heart of Hoop's character with just two acoustic guitars and three voices. Listening back-to-back is a striking experience. This double gem is the first ever vinyl pressing of both titles and is not only a must have for the collectors of Hoop's work but an essential for those new to the realm. 

TRACK LISTING

Disc One:
Summertime
Seed Of Wonder
Enemy
Silverscreen
Money
Dreams In The Hollow
Love Is All We Have
Intelligentactile
Havoc In Heaven
Out The Back Door
Love And Love Again

Disc Two:
Silverscreen (Acoustic)
Summertime (Acoustic)
Out The Back Door (Acoustic)
Seed Of Wonder (Acoustic)
Enemy (Acoustic)
Love Is All We Have (Acoustic)
Intelligentactile 101 (Acoustic)
Havoc In Heaven (Acoustic)
Reves Dans Le Creux
Money (Acoustic)
Love And Love Again (Acoustic)
Paradise (Acoustic) 

Jesca Hoop returns with her sixth album, Order of Romance, a record that fortifies her position as one of the most striking and original voices in contemporary music. Order of Romance is Hoop's most intricate and finely balanced album to date, one that draws on classic song writing, recalling anything from Gershwin to Paul Simon, but creating something that is unmistakably, indelibly Jesca Hoop. It is a deep dive into craft. As Jesca says “I set out to mature as a writer, to further clarity my voice and stance, through melodies and phrases only I can construct. Order of Romance feels like every person, character, or artist, I ever was over the many seasons of my life was handed an instrument to play across the songs.”

In the summer of 2021, Hoop once again ventured south from her adopted home of Manchester to Bristol to team up with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding), her collaborator for 2019’s Stonechild. This time additional assistance came from in Jess Vernon (This is the Kit) to arrange for a four-piece horn and woodwind quintet. Legendary drummer Seb Rochford lent his skills, John Thorne plays the bass and Chloe Foy and Rachel Rimmer were enlisted to deliver Hoop’s signature vocal arrangements. The result is a fruitful marriage of song craft and arrangement, brimming with a cinematic charm and lyrical wit that signify a new chapter full of new life for an artist who knows her mind, her heart and voice well enough to trust them in uncharted territory.

Order of Romance then is a complete work that demands close attention, an active listen, a filagree that’s apparent lightness of touch belies a serious intent. Themes of empathy and friendship, intertwine with a clear eyed and moralistic poetry on subjects such as gun control, religious and political cults, and climate change.

Order of Romance is perhaps ultimately an exploration of the endless balance act of being a ‘Human Being’, an approach and examination of some of the biggest theme and issues of our time through the doorway of the personal, a way finding meaning and some kind of faith in a world where so much is disconnected and discordant. As she states “I seek out reflection and resolve in my songs. I find out who I am in a sense. For a few minutes, I can exist in nature at my full potential, saying just what I mean, in balance, in awe, in wonder and in full force. As a moral agent, a mode I can’t seem to avoid, my writing is time taken to observe and ask questions. I find humour in our predicament. I find danger in the reckoning. I find faith despite our sorry state and I feel connection when I draw it through my voice. I stand my ground and through the music and point inevitably towards compassion”.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Sudden Light
2. I Was Just 14
3. Hatred Has A Mother
4. One Way Mirror
5. Silent Extinction
Side B
6. 7lbs Of Pressure
7. Sioux Falls
8. Like I Am Time
9. Firestorm
10. Lyre Bird

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JULY 17TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JULY 17TH).

Jesca Hoop has a tradition of reimagining and rerecording her own albums and having previously created beautifully stark versions of her albums Kismet and Hunting my Dress it is the turn of The House That Jack Built. Recorded in her Manchester based home-built studio in December 2020, these intimate and immediate reworkings shine the spotlight on Hoops intricate, complex song writing with her astonishing vocals front and centre The Deconstruction of Jackís House comes on limited edition white vinyl for Record Store Day 2021.

A culmination of life and musical experience, uncompromising in its vision, STONECHILD, the new studio album from Jesca Hoop is a self-described “compassion project.” 

Released by Memphis Industries, STONECHILD is Hoop refined and defined. Beautiful, subtle and stark, her fifth album, the follow up to 2017’s highly acclaimed ‘Memories Are Now’, is her best yet. 

Despite being a long-term resident of Manchester, Hoop, has until now, returned to her native California to record. This time round however, “it was” according to Hoop “time to step out of my comfort zone, my safe place”, venturing south to Bristol to team up with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, This is the Kit). Parish’s minimal and purist approach helped clarify Hoop in her ideas and subtly yet effectively realigning her sound. The simplified arrangements draw focus to the fundamental sophistication of the songs. 

While Hoop’s trademark finger-plucked guitar and ethereal textures remain, the songs and their presentation are ever more direct. Parish “was a gentle collaborator until he killed one of my darlings” Hoop jests. “I’ve never been so brutally edited, and I wasn’t shy about expressing my discomfort at the sight of my work on the cutting room floor. He said, you will forgive me, and in some way, I think I actually enjoyed that treatment…being stripped back to the bare basics…albeit painfully”. STONECHILD ventures further into fresh territory with other voices joining the narrative, with Kate Stables (aka This is the Kit) Rozi Plain and Lucius singing the choruses and expanding the sensual depth of the sonic bloom. 

STONECHILD, Hoop says, is intended to “wrap its arms around our human planet spinning in its increasingly precarious wobble”. These rich and curious songs derived from themes of our troubled times speak Hoop’s heart and mind from her empathetic yet tough loving centre point. With writing so fluid, so natural the result is an album where everything is truly meant.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Gorgeous fingerplucked guitar brings echoes of 60's folk, alt-country and modern brooding indie, all wrapped together with Hoop's delicate, prominent vocal talents. Brilliantly textured but smoothly flowing from one idea to another. A masterclass in restraint and songwriting.

TRACK LISTING

1. Free Of The Feeling (Ft. Lucius)
2. Shoulder Charge (Ft. Lucius)
3. Old Fear Of Father
4. Footfall To The Path
5. Death Row
6. Red White And Black
7. 01 Tear
8. All Time Low
9. Outside Of Eden (Ft. Kate Stables And Justis)
10. Passage's End
11. Time Capsule

Jesca Hoop’s new album ‘Memories Are Now’, out on Sub Pop Records, wastes no time in making clear its confidence, confrontation and craftsmanship.

The stark and reverberant title track opens the album with “a fighting spirit,” says Hoop, serving as an anthem to push through any obstacle and put forth your very best work. She has done that here unequivocally, with an album of stunningly original songs - minimalist yet brimming with energy, emerging from a wealth of life experience, great emotional depth and years of honing the craft of singing.

As riveting as it is reflective, the album, produced by Blake Mills (Fiona Apple, Alabama Shakes), is a fresh debut of sorts for Hoop, as the first of her solo records made outside of Tony Berg’s Zeitgeist Studios where she and Mills were mentored. Says Hoop, “Blake is so utterly musical and emotionally intelligent in his expression. I wanted to see what we could do, just he and I out from under Tony’s wing.” Mills pushed her to strip away layers, keeping it as close to the live experience as possible, using whole live takes and working very quickly. “It’s still covered in embryonic fluid, for lack of a better way to put it,” says Hoop.

‘Memories Are Now’ covers a great deal of ground, showcasing every edge and curve of Hoop’s captivating voice, with sounds and themes ranging from the mythic to the deeply intimate. She sings of the religion that weighs heavily on her past and the world, of the imagination of myth, of the cruel nature of life and love.

The defiance that permeates ‘Memories Are Now’ is both a product and necessity of a career that has been independently driven and self-funded from the beginning. “All of my successes have been won on the grassroots level, with handshakes and hugs from great people who believe in me,” says Hoop, more than a decade into her career and with new paths to forge. As she sings in the title track, “I’ve lived enough life, I’ve earned my stripes. That’s my knife in the ground, this is mine.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hypnotic pastoral folk, swooning Americana and Hoop's characteristic beautiful vocal style. Wonderfully emotive, beautifully produced and an essential addition to the collection of any lover of Americana / folk / country. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

Memories Are Now
The Lost Sky
Animal Kingdom Chaotic
Simon Says
Cut Connection
Songs Of Old
Unsaid
Pegasi
The Coming