Bast

There’s an uncanny feeling that I sometimes get when listening to some of my favorite musicians—John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix immediately spring to mind. It’s a sense of confrontation with truth, one that cuts right through the noise of life and hits me straight in the chest. There is a transcendence in it—their persistence in the face of physical struggle allows these artists to surge past the confines of their instruments and express something more deeply human. Their playing feels vocal.

I’ve never encountered a vocalist that expresses that kind of near-prophetic balance between beauty and pain in quite the same way as Like A Villain. The opening, eponymous cut from Bast feels like a primer on it. In fact, at several points along this 2014 album’s 37 minutes, I feel like Holland Andrews’ voice shares something simultaneously more visceral and more ethereal than much else I can remember.

”Complex, rich emotionality inspires my work, as well as finding the sweet spot where catharsis is discovered through dissonance and resonance to cultivate healing,” they write. “Having the capacity to perform with complete freedom and the pursued mastery of what I'm trying to do is what keeps me creating.”

What makes music feel spiritual? For me at least, the answer has to do with the extent to which a song encourages the listener to confront death, time, and impermanence vs. distracting from those things. Bast goes there without blinking. We hope you’ll take a listen. 

Rafiq Bhatia of Son Lux

Originally released digitally August 10, 2014

Recorded and produced by Mike Erwin
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk

Original music and lyrics for "Lass from the Low Countree" written by John Jacob Niles
Music and lyrics written by Holland Andrews