Jenai Huff
Album: Grace And Elbow Grease
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 6
Website: http://www.jenaihuffmusic.com

California-raised but now relocated to New York City, Jenai sang as a child then (inexplicably?) did nothing with her voice for something like 20 years, only finally being persuaded to rekindle the flame a couple of years ago by her husband Doug Ingoldsby. She released an album Transitions (this one, sadly, escaped my radar entirely), which apparently consisted entirely of covers of her favourite songs; the critical acclaim from this experience then in turn encouraged Jenai to write some songs of her own, and this new EP-sized collection is the result. Confessional in style, but shot through with a loosely Americana sensibility and therefore accessible rather than exclusive, these songs exhibit a quality of sanguine reflection and hope amidst crisis and confusion.

The title number is an optimistic light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel road-song, whereas the closing Splintered Light is a similarly hope-filled vision; between these poles, Jenai examines the internal process that comes with the desire to live her dreams, ponders the potential fulfilment of desire (Just Like Me) and puts herself inside the mind of a mother who’s just lost her child to an unreasoned (and unpunished) killer.

There’s plenty of promise in these songs, but they come with a caveat – the leisurely tempo chosen for all six of the songs’ musical settings is very similar and in the end proves altogether too uniform, with the result that the songs tend to merge into one another when the disc is in continuous-play mode. However, the supporting ensemble (comprising a handful of hand-picked musicians: Ben Wisch, Kevin Barry, Zev Katz and Chris Marshak) is most sympathetic to the mood of Jenai’s lyrics, and their gentle and slightly jazzy ambience is perfectly contoured to Jenai’s deep and soulful voice.

David Kidman