featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
September 3, 2023
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
There was no bidding war for my attentions when it came time for college. Years later, my parents told me they'd considered buying the local record store for me to manage since my success in college was very questionable. I applied to one school - the one my older brother attended - and was unexpectedly accepted. Returning home after that first year (flunked Algebra, convinced my roommate to move out), I remember thinking the house in which I grew up seemed much smaller. This was increasingly true each time I paid a visit. I felt like I no longer belonged there.
As Covid took hold (remember Spring of 2020?), countless young adults were forced out of school and away from work. They turned towards home, to their childhood bedrooms in a house in which they no longer fit. Having grown up in Morrison, Colorado (home of Red Rocks), songwriter Jobi Riccio enrolled at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston before turning for home. Of course, these late teens and early twenties are typically tumultuous years by default, as we decide who we are outside our family circle, trying on new identities. Riccio documents her navigation of these times on her first widely-released collection, the appropriately titled Whiplash (Yep Roc, Sep 8).
The basic tracks for the album were recorded with producer Gar Ragland, Riccio's prize for winning 2019's NewSong competition, then were completed with Jesse Timm and Isaiah Beard once pandemic restrictions permitted. Bare acoustic tracks share space with more fleshed out numbers that push tunes alternately in an indie folk or a country direction. With Jobi Riccio's outstanding vocal delivery, the results are as much of a wake-up call as Courtney Marie Andrews' Honest Life in 2017, her own coming-of-age album.
Beginning with the buzz of cicadas, "Summer" sweeps listeners up in its spiraling breeze, brushing between fond sensory memories and a pervasive melancholy: Something's bound to happen, ain't that summer's guarantee / So how come every summer I get so damn lonely. Josie Toney's fiddle sweeps and flits like a restless dragonfly, as pedal steel shines languidly like sunlight between branches. A similar longing underlies "Homesick", as Riccio wanders a party, admiring all the beautiful people drinking stars in their champagne while her heart is half a continent away: Heartsick for a life I can never get back. Both tracks build their lovely arrangements around the singer's wide-ranging voice, exploring her lower register before climbing gracefully on a gust of emotion.
Much of Whiplash alludes to Jobi Riccio's journey of identity, stepping forward as a queer artist, pulling together bits of bluegrass, country, folk, and indie music and making them her own. "Sweet" weds Mike Robinson's pedal steel with the filigree of Riccio's vocal. A product of her Lucinda phase, the song surrounds her with a satisfyingly full country-rock setting: All the guys I meet just lead to dead ends / And all the girls I've wanted never had a clue / And probably don't bat for my team even if they knew / I'm just not that sweet. Channeling the spirits of old school country songwriters, "For Me It's You" prompted Jason Isbell to tweet: Check that shit out, it's solid. The beautifully simple country heartbreak tune drips with sad strings, boasting Riccio's strongest delivery, as she concludes: I'm not who you're achin' for. That juxtaposition between confidence and vulnerability, the balance between youth and adulthood is at the heart of Jobi Riccio's strong appeal.
I'm somewhere between a woman and a child, Riccio observes on the title cut, possibly the record's most mature musical statement. With Alec Spiegelman's breathy sax and a compliment of tumbling percussion, "Whiplash" creates space for the songwriter to express the crash of emotions and experiences, a knot of longing and dismissal: He's probably downtown drinking up the neon / Pouring his best line into her glass. "Relief" gives lead to her Chicks influence, while "One Last Time" posits the singer in a late-night jazz lounge. There is a taste of jazz as well in "Lonely Tonight", another of the pieces that encourage Whiplash in a more contemporary indie direction with its choice of synthed strings and percussion: I'm feeling sorry for poor little me / Oh what else is new.
Jobi Riccio recorded "Trying" in her Morrison bedroom as she settled in for the pandemic surrounded by the whispers of her childhood: Back here in my hometown / My high school graduation gown stares me down. Just her layered vocal and acoustic guitar, the austere song is quietly turbulent, the bedroom a still center amidst swirling questions and demands, the whiplash of young adulthood: I took for granted most years of my life. While the Covid story grinds on to an uncertain resolution for countless young adults, Riccio rode the breakers to Nashville.
ROUTES-cast September 3, 2023
- Willy Tea Taylor & the Fellership, "National Treasure" Great Western Hangover (Blackwing, Oct 27) D
- Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates, "Queen of Diamonds" single (WarHen, 23) D
- Zach Bryan, "I Remember Everything (ft Kacey Musgraves)" Zach Bryan (Belting Bronco, 23)
- Morgan Wade, "27 Club" Psychopath (Ladylike, 23)
- John Baumann, "Border Radio" Border Radio (Terlingua Spring, Oct 6)
- Turnpike Troubadours, "The Rut" Cat in the Rain (Bossier City, 23)
- Steel Woods, "Man From Everywhere" On Your Time (Woods, Oct 6)
- Restos, "Time" Ain't Dead Yet (Restos, Sep 29) D
- Handsome Family, "Oldest Water" Hollow (Milk & Scissors, Sep 8)
- Nick Shoulders, "All Bad" All Bad (Gar Hole, Sep 8)
- Lydia Loveless, "Sex and Money" Nothing's Gonna Stand In My Way Again (Bloodshot, Sep 22)
- Ha Ha Tonka, "Blood Red Moon" Blood Red Moon (Ha Ha Tonka, Oct 20) D
- Woods, "Little Black Flowers" Perennial (Woodsist, Sep 15)
- The Natvral, "Carolina" Summer of No Light (Dirty Bingo, 23)
- Beirut, "So Many Plans" Hadsel (Pompeii, Nov 10) D
- Jerry Leger, "Three Hours Ahead of Midnight" Donlands (Latent, Oct 27) D
- Jacob Aranda, "Joshua" War Planes (Speakeasy, 23)
- Buddy & Julie Miller, "I'll Never Lie It Down" In the Throes (New West, Sep 22)
- Dylan LeBlanc, "No Promises Broken" Coyote (ATO, Oct 20) D
- Blitzen Trapper, "Cheap Fantastical Takedown" single (Yep Roc, 23) D
- Margo Price, "Strays" Strays II (Loma Vista, Oct 13)
- Anna Rose, "Last Girl of the Rodeo" Last Girl of the Rodeo (White Pony, 23)
- Lindsay Lou, "I Can Help" Queen of Time (Kill Rock Stars, Sep 29)
- Jason Hawk Harris, "Jordan and the Nile" Thin Places (Bloodshot, Oct 6) D
- John P Strohm, "Troubleland (ft Aaron Lee Tasjan)" Something To Look Forward To (Propeller Sound, Sep 29) D
- Greyhounds & T Bird and the Breaks, "Hard To Believe" Greybird (Aftershave, 23) D
- Hiss Golden Messenger, "Jesus is Bored" Jump For Joy (Merge, 23)
- Israel Nash, "Can't Stop" Ozarker (Desert Folklore, Oct 20)
- Billy Strings & Molly Tuttle, "Listen To the Radio" More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith (Rounder, Sep 22)
- Prewn, "But I Want More" Through the Window (Exploding in Sound, 23) D
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