Sam Beam grew up in the Bible Belt before earning a sizeable following as artisanal acoustic balladeer Iron & Wine.
Jesca Hoop was raised a Californian Mormon before honing her mischievous folk songs and earning the spectacular endorsement of having once been babysitter to Tom Waits’s children. It’s a delightful match.
Duet albums often have an air of novelty – and you feel this could easily have become a twee coffee-shop soundtrack – but the two singers balance one another well, Beam anchoring Hoop’s kookiness, Hoop corrupting Beam’s down-hominess.
Both are adept at close harmonies – a church upbringing comes in handy – and their voices find a tender alchemy on asymmetric love songs such as Know the Wild that Wants You and Bright Lights and Goodbyes, sparsely backed with banjo, cello and whispered drums.
And it’s quite funny hearing Beam try to jump around Hoop’s erratic melody line on Chalk It Up to Chi.
(Sub Pop)
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