Holland cites
Miles Davis and his album
In a Silent Way as a
major influence on his recent material. "[
In a Silent Way]
was a very cinematic record," he says. "They just played, and
[Davis] would take passages that he liked and edit them together.
We would play for 10 minutes and roll through all these chord
changes, and then I would go back and just pick one little
10-second loop that I thought really summed up the idea or sounded
good."
After self-producing both of his solo records, Holland is working
with an outside producer for his next album, something he hasn't
done since Jennyanykind's 1996 Elektra release
Revelater. "I
want to move forward with the kind of feel that we went with on
Tomorrows American Treasures - which, basically, was no
feel. It happened very improvisationally. But I want to hand over
the engineering reins to somebody else," he explains.
With 12 tracks already complete (working titles include "I Remember
Leslie Riddle" and "Train Called Locomotive Dreams"), Holland is
well on his way to completing his third record in as many years.
Next month he can be found at the GrassRoots Festival of Music and
Dance in Trumansburg,
New York (July 20 to 23).
The Favela Blues
He might sing in Portuguese, but the raw emotion and sultry rhythms
of Seu Jorge's samba-style pop transcends any cultural divide.
Along with the caipirinha and the film
City of God (in which
he played Knockout Ned), singer-actor Seu Jorge is the latest
Brazilian export to permeate American culture by capturing the
pulse of an entire nation into an easily digestible medium - in
this case, a 10-song CD.
Cru (Wrasse Records), Jorge's
American debut, is a cultural earful, steeped in elements of
traditional samba and laid out as casually as a balmy Brazilian
breeze.