JANA HUNTER releases Carrion EP; tours with Devendra Banhart

Jana Hunter will be releasing CARRION an EP consisting of six songs this Fall. Half of them were composed during the same period that produced the material on her most recent full-length, There's No Home , while the other half are alternate renditions of works that appeared on that release. CARRION is being released via Gnomonsong in conjunction with Jana opening tour dates for Gnomonsong co-owner Devendra Banhart.

Concerning the first three tracks, "Paint A Babe," "A Goblin, A Goblin," and "You Will Take It and Like It" -- the first is a throw-back to Hunter's earlier material, written and recorded simultaneously on a borrowed four-track recorder, and is a very sad, song, filled with longing. "A Goblin…” is a sturdy number, replete with violins and creepy harmony vocals, that tells the tale of an indignant outcast. The last of that bunch revolves around one central guitar part -- a pretty and proud one -- turned over and over and over, with others mirroring it, leeching from it, grabbing onto it as little parasitic danglers.

The second half of Carrion features "There's No Home," the original recording (so potent that it Jana was moved to name the entire album after it), then "Sleep" (here titled, as it was originally, "Ooh Uuh,"), a version that ended up on a compilation of lullabyes, andl ast comes the the acoustic re-presentation of the country-minded "Oracle," stripped down to one guitar, one melody, and one harmony, as it was originally conceived in its creation as homage.

The full length There's No Home played extrovert to its predecessor Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom's introvert. Involving community was the focus of the recording process and is what breathed life into these recordings. While Jana played most of the instruments, she was aided and abetted by, among others, her brother, John Hunter (Inoculist and Dethro Skull) playing some bass and singing, John Adams (the Fatal Flying Guilloteens) on drums and Matt Brownlie (Bring Back the Guns) playing a number of instruments.

In 2004, Jana made her first big splash among fans of distinctive music with her track “Farm, CA” on the Banhart-curated Golden Apples of the Sun collection released by Arthur Magazine’s CD label, Bastet, followed by vinyl-only split release with Devendra Banhart on the Troubleman label. Late the following year she released her full length debut Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom which was the inaugural release on Gnomonsong, the label founded by Devendra and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic in conjunction with Revolver Distribution. Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom was a collection of songs written over the period of a decade, a thirteen song "best of" compiled in part from various CDR releases she’d sold at live shows. Critical reaction to both CDs has been great:

…Jana's songs are sparse, eerie, and beautifully melodic. It's hard not to link her to the sound of the Devendras and the Vetivers of the world, but it is an easy way to describe her music. Put it this way, Jana does it better. Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom and There's No Home are both listens that take a few times to "get," which is always something that shows the longevity of any album. Once you get it, you get it…Jeffrey Thrope/TheTripWire.com 4/16

Besides being one of the best and most underrated luminaries on the neo-folk scene, Hunter is the entrepreneur who toured the East Coast last summer by sailboat. Her meditative, playful, sparse, acoustic-driven songs are refreshing, somber, and sometimes eerie. She's touring for the soon-to-be-released- and most excellent!- There's No Home which finds Jana exploring ever-so-slightly poppier tunes. Shawn Bosler/Village Voice 4/11