Jolie Holland's 'Haunted Mountain' is a beckoning, confronting place. At once ancient and of the moment, it hums with literary and political interconnections. The songs illuminate states of dispossession and alienation, lust and pollination: a state of reciprocity with our living planet. The record is a creation beyond genre, a refined jewel refracting anti-patriarchal dance music, sultry anti-fascist love songs to bats and bees.

Jolie Holland has always embodied everything weird and wonderful in the history of American music, but "Wine Dark Sea" takes it to a new level. Raw and unrestrained, bristling with kinetic energy, "Wine Dark Sea" is unlike anything she’s ever recorded, but is also the purest and most assured evocation of Holland's vision to date. A joyfully unrestrained masterwork, the record delivers: louder, noisier, raw and visceral. It is an inventive and fiery reimagining of delta blues, free jazz, classic r&b and country, infused throughout with a no wave abandon.