Metamorphosis

new album out on Colorfield records September 12!

Metamorphosis is a mid-career reinvention from masterful vocalist Holly Palmer. Conceived with friend and collaborator, producer / multi-instrumentalist Pete Min as a pure sonic adventure, Metamorphosis was executed in the studio with no significant planning, built piece-by-piece through improvisation and experimentation. The result is jazz-inflected art-pop, as warm, playful and inviting as it is uncategorizable, a record brimming with beautiful and exploratory supporting performances from heavyweights like Cuong Vu, Jeff Parker, Benny Bock, Jay Bellerose, Mark Guiliana and Tim Lefebvre.

Though the record contains not a single decipherable word, it speaks volumes about Palmer’s life and artistry. She is not only a professional singer with a Master’s in Vocal Arts and Opera but a vocologist and devotee of the science of singing. This record is a means by which to explore and push the bounds of singing, to find new shapings of vocal sounds. “Metamorphosis is an album about turning into the thing, the person, the force, the energy that you’ve been headed for all along,” Palmer says. “I thought my life was headed in one direction and at a certain point, everything shifted and took on a different shape. That’s the ‘metamorphosis’ that this album embodies. That’s the ‘metamorphosis’ that this album is singing about.” This statement is key: Palmer’s profoundly expressive voice may be the driving force of this record, but it is indeed the record itself that sings.

It is crucial to note that however improvisatory and exploratory the process of creating Metamorphosis, it is not a recording of jam sessions. While each contributor had an indispensable role, Palmer and Min ultimately built and shaped tightly focused, art-pop gems that sometimes recall the groove and vocal world-building of Dirty Projectors while owing a debt to the avant vocal jazz of Jeanne Lee’s Conspiracy. And there are certainly also notable parallels with Min’s recent collaboration with Joey Waronker, King King or other contemporaries like Resavoir, Ulla, or Carlos Niño.  But this is a profoundly personal album that is overflowing with Palmer’s uniquely expressive sounds and a sense of her own forward-thinking outlook. “This album marks a new phase of my musicianship and writing approach,” Palmer says. “We made this album for the love of making the music, with no other agenda. I had no idea that we’d end up with such a personal album.” It is a record, Palmer says, which is “full of feelings I’d previously not found a way to express.”