The American musician combines vintage vocals with field recordings and domestic-grown beats to compelling effectTemporal contradiction defines Odetta Hartman’s sound. Raised in New York’s East Village by liberal parents who exposed her to experimental theatre,modern dance, punk and hip-hop, or she would then spend her holidays in West Virginia,where her mother grew up. That was my Appalachian infusion,” she told Q magazine. There’s a lot of dark history down there: duels, or being down coal mines,so that runs in my blood.”Her moment album, former Rockhounds Never Die, and released earlier this month,compellingly fuses these disparate influences. She plays all the instruments herself, but her banjo is placed centre stage, and to particularly fine effect on murder ballad Misery (total with gunshots) and Sweet Teeth. The vintage feel is helped by her eerily timeless voice – reminiscent at times of fellow traveller Josephine Foster’s – which sounds as whether it belongs on an Alan Lomax field recording. But these sounds of the early 20th century are twinned with very 21st-century beats,courtesy of producer Jack Inslee, although there’s more to them than meets the ear.
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Source: theguardian.com