Send "Sarah Jarosz " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 No one should be surprised that acoustic multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz can pick clean and fast. Jarosz’s first album showcased her ability to take on folk, country, and bluegrass music head on as well as cover rock songs with creative gusto. Jarosz does the same on her latest album, but she has expanded her musical palette and does much more. Follow Me Down, which will be released shortly before her 20th birthday, reveals Jarosz’ considerable growth as singer, songwriter, and player. Her talent at performing everything from slow airs to somewhat avant-garde compositions while keeping the music consistently interesting suggests she is wise beyond her years. Take, for example, the self-penned instrumental “Peace”. She plays gentle ripples of mandolin notes, letting the instrument’s voice soothingly express the melody over a layer of soft atmospherics provided by Stuart Duncan (fiddle) and Edgar Meyer (Arco bass). Meanwhile, Seamus Egan responds on wooden flute, and the music sounds as calm and natural as a babbling brook on a breezy spring day with a bird chirping from a nearby branch. This is “The Peace of Wild Things”, as Wendell Berry says. Or there’s her version of Radiohead’s “The Tourist”, with its languid pacing and chorus of “Hey man, slow down, slow down / Idiot, slow down, slow down”. In lesser hands, this could be a dirge, but Jarosz (with the help of the Punch Brothers) turns this howl into something that progresses with hidden energies. One feels the speed of “traveling a thousand feet per second” while being locked in a mode of transport. One does not move under one’s own power, but one is nomadic nonetheless. The pleasant and unpleasant sensations merge into an awareness of how strange and alienating modern life can be....full text |
| Guardian |
| Here's a turn-up; a 20-year-old bluegrass prodigy who digs Radiohead. Texas-born Jarosz made her name as a teenage banjo whiz on the country circuit, with her 2009 debut album, Song Up In Her Head, showing songwriting and vocal skills to match. This follow-up is equally impressive. Some self-penned numbers, such as "Annabelle Lee", could have been plucked from an old-time songbook. Others, like "My Muse", are unmistakably modern. Her cover of Radiohead's "The Tourist" sets its Yorkian angst to a dulcimer backdrop, while a crystalline version of Dylan's "Ring Them Bells" steals the show. Dazzling playing from star accompanists such as Chris Thile seals the deal....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| With a descending circular flourish of acoustic guitar notes, the bluegrass influence on Follow Me Down is evident, but the almost weightlessness suggests something else, something perhaps more. By the time the husky alto voice comes in, inviting us to “Follow me down through the cotton fields/ Moon shadow shine by the well/ Lead us down a road, where no one goes, we can run away…,” the bewitchment is complete. Sarah Jarosz, now 19, made quite a mark two years ago with Song Up In Her Head, but rather than hone the traditional Appalachian discipline, the sensualist singer explores the possibilities of acoustic/roots music — conjuring songscapes, erotic tableau and enough tension to hold listeners transfixed throughout Follow Me Down. Largely self-penned — save for a shimmering rendition of Bon Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells” featuring vocals from Vince Gill and a lean, brooding meander through Radiohead’s minor-keyed gem “The Tourist” with the Punch Brothers, plus a banjo-and-fiddle-strewn haunter based on Edgar Allan Poe’s elegiac poem “Annabel Lee” made all the more haunting by Dan Tyminski’s counterpoint vocals — these songs could serve as a map to the bohemian gypsy heart of a young woman coming into her own. They’re rife with desire, hope, the hunger to see what the world holds, a little uncertainty and always the exultant joy that can be found in the playing....full text |
Sarah Jarosz lyrics
|
| ||||||||||
