Review: Hemma "Abalone Sky" • Americana Highways

Hemma, Abalone Sky (self-released)
By Edd Hurt

At its most evolved, progressive folk in this moment deserves to be called super-folk. The music on Minneapolis singer and songwriter Hemma’s Abalone Sky evokes the pioneering super-folk of Joni Mitchell, complete with nods to the kind of modal melodies Joni herself favored. In modern terms, Abalone Sky is similar to the more Nashville-centric progressive folk of Sarah Jarosz. Like Jarosz, whose recent work with producer and songwriter Daniel Tashian expands the sonic palette of folk rock, Hemma tweaks the arrangements and sonics on Abalone Sky with production that pushes at the edges of folk-rock orthodoxy.

Like prime Joni—think Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns—Abalone Sky is superbly melodic, as on the single track “Homebody,” which fuses upright bass from Jeremy Boettcher with Ben Lester’s keys and producer Sean Carey’s drums, along with Hemma’s electric guitar.

The sound Hemma & Co. came up with at Brian Joseph’s in-demand studio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, hive., honors the great folk rockers of the past, but it’s both sleek and a little edgy, like the times we live in.

The production, by Brian Joseph and Sean Carey, adds in cello, fiddle and keyboards to “Patterns,” which is Americana as chamber music. Meanwhile, “Float” comes closest to the avant-folk heard lurking in a lot of this album. Those modal melodic moves mentioned above make “Float” as worthy of comparison to say, Richard Thompson, as it is to Jarosz or Joni. Like the best super-folk, Abalone Sky works best when the production ramps up the atmospherics, and Carey and Joseph do a great job of filling out the sound. Hemma, which is the stage moniker of Hannah Hebl, sings well throughout, as befits a vocalist who has shared stages with the likes of Nikki Grossman and the Cactus Blossoms.

Watch the video for “Lullabies,” directed by Erik and Sarah Elstran, here: