Sara Ryan

Veda Hille’s new album, This Riot Life, just came in the mail. She’s been one of my favorite musicians ever since VJ introduced me to her work, gosh, yikes, I guess it’s been about a decade ago. Here’s an article about the album. If you’re not inclined to click, this phrase gives a good summary: “an interpretation of ecstatic religious music channeled through Hille’s singular creative lens.”

I love it exactly as much as I thought I would. As usual, her precise, clear voice has a knowing, almost insinuating quality, and this time she has a whole gang of folks backing her up: a 12-piece band and some guest vocalists.

If I had to pick one favorite song, it would probably be “Book of Saints.” It starts quietly and turns defiant: I will not martyr I will not martyr/I will hit you harder. But there’s also “Ace of the Nazarene,” where she turns a hymn by Frederick William Henry Myers into what John Darnielle would call a barnburner: the kid of god stays up all night long! And the poignant “This Spring.” And “Constance,” based on another hymn, but what a difference a pronoun change makes. And the album opener, “Lucklucky” — I just want to quote the entire song, but I’ll hold myself to part of one verse: it took 30 years to draw this map/and now what do you see/the city or your map of the city/the city or your life in the city

…um, never mind. Turns out that I can’t choose a favorite.

You can listen to three of her songs on her Myspace — warning, the player starts automatically — and, my Portland friends, you can join me on March 16th to see her live at the Alberta Street Pub. (Seattle friends, you can see her a few days earlier at the Capitol Hill Arts Center.)