What all of these songs have in common is a new openness in Jarosz's singing. "Dark Road" drifts between electric Americana, newgrass, and contemporary folk, kissed by Jerry Douglas' dobro and Scott's electric guitar. "Over the Edge," fueled by Dan Dugmore's lap steel, Jedd Hughes' acoustic guitar, and her own octave mandolin, walks a roots rock line, while the title track is a slipstream modern folk number that finds her voice accompanied by mandolin, two string players, and O'Donovan's harmony vocal. Jarosz plays guitar, banjo, and mandolins. She wrote nine of the 11 songs here, and chose two covers: Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate" and Joanna Newsom's "The Book of Right-On." Her various backing musicians include Viktor Krauss, Chris Thile, Darrell Scott, and Aiofe O'Donovan, to name a few. Build Me Up from Bones reflects years of study in contemporary voice improvisation at the New England Conservatory of Music. The result is a system that sees the budding of world-class music worthy of a wide audience, and this is where Sarah Jarosz and Build Me Up From Bones resides.The third full-length by 22-year-old Sarah Jarosz reflects not only her growth as a songwriter but her willingness to push the boundaries of country, folk, and Americana to discover connections not necessarily considered before. Though bluegrass can be hard to break into, it is tooled for evaluating, cultivating, and nurturing talent instead of trying to maximize its returns financially. It’s boggling when the arguments that bleed over from the country world question how country can respect its roots and still evolve, when time and time again talented artists from a virile and healthy bluegrass world offer such inspiring illustrations of this very practice. Of Sarah’s originals, the “Build Me Up From Bones” title track, and the fingerpicked “Dark Road” came across as standouts, but Build Me Up From Bones fails to deliver one sleepy track, even though some ears may yearn for a little more meat than what Jarosz offers in her progressive approach. Her multi-instrumental training goes far in picking the colors for Build Me Up From Bones, though the work in general feels much more like an exhibit in songwriting as much as anything. From there Jarosz works to satiate a myriad of influences without straying too far from a unified sound, including tackling the dizzying verses of Joanna Newsom’s “The Book Of Right-On,” and Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” that Jarosz revitalizes with a very sparse approach, showcasing how her adeptness with instrumentation and songwriting gives up nothing to her vocal prowess. Any of these concerns are alleviated with the very next number “Fuel The Fire” that is driven by the familiar chuck of a clawhammered banjo accompanied by fiddle. The sultry opening number “Over The Edge” with its fiery electric guitar makes it known that our cute little Sarah Jarosz has matured and is ready to take the world by storm, but it may have some worried that she has run from her bluegrass past. She’s deep in the pocket of her own original musical expression, built upon the roots of the bluegrass discipline, and inspired by its lore. Jarosz isn’t playing over her head or having to make up for anything. The seed has been nurtured good and plenty and is blooming at the right time.īuild Me Up From Bones is a bold work of progressive bluegrass that showcases young Jarosz’s developed songwriting and adeptness at composition, while not sacrificing the whimsy and fun an album from a 22-year-old must have to be genuine. No worries about a rickety foundation or a lack of preparation from this girl. Despite dizzying workloads, she managed to release two albums through Sugar Hill Records and play a slew of shows and tours that never led on to her growing fan base that she was pulling double duty between work and schooling. But Jarosz doesn’t seem to like things easy. She already had mastered the mandolin, and her music career was well on its way when she ran off to the New England Conservatory for Music in 2009. Possibly the best lesson to glean from Sarah Jarosz is patience. Sure, since you were 10-years-old you’ve been charming audiences with your cute songs, ruddy cheeks, and how fast you can move your fingers, but 2013 is the year of the song, and the only value technique and memory have is when they accompany an original story that can touch deep. Jarosz not only mastered this move and stuck the landing, she did so with such ease that her story could be used as a blueprint of how to navigate these treacherous, and sometimes career-ending waters. Just about one of the most difficult maneuvers in music is for the childhood prodigy to transition into the adult performance world with deftness and grace. The 22-year-old Texas native Sarah Jarosz symbolizes a victory by so many measures, even before you delve into the substance of her new album Build Me Up From Bones.
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