Jess Hill is a unique singer-songwriter risen from the talented denizens of East Vancouver. She is a storyteller whose delicately constructed lyrical worlds captivate, standing firmly with her blues-draped compositions. Her music will smash your heart, pinch you in your sweetest nerves, give pause to the present and sing you to sleep all in one gently fierce moment. Jess invites the audience into her realm, engaging them with a voice like the sound of a well-rosined bow across your heartstrings, telling tales over her skillfully crafted guitar playing. She can pull a room of strangers into her palm, crushing them with stinging emotions and releasing them reborn into the night.
Since releasing her debut album Road in 2006, Jess Hill has been featured on CBC radio, performed at The Vancouver Folk Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Artswells, and numerous other festivals in BC, as well as becoming a much loved staple in the arenas of the western Canadian music scene. She was a top 20 finalist in the Peak Performance Project in 2010, Vancouver’s indie music showcase and contest put on by The Peak 100.5FM. Her second full length album Orchard, recorded and produced by the multi-talented Aaron Joyce, pushes away from the dock of her folk roots, and onto the frontiers of new creative fires, delivering arrangements sometimes slightly more electric in nature. The new album showcases Hill’s signature sound but also shows her artistic growth by casting a more ethereal and fantasy-tuned mood over the entirety of the recording.
PRESS:
“This young lady had an impressive set of pipes. She could growl like June Carter (of Johnny Cash fame), and I mean that in the best possible way. It was friendly, fun, and great way to open the festival.”
- PanicManual (review of NxNE showcase)
“The only important thing you to need to know is that Jess Hill is the real thing and “Poppy, Poppy and a Black Crow Calling” is a song you want to hear. Right now this would be in my Top Five of the First Listen, First Thoughts standings.”
- Amphetazine
“For starters, she comes across as an old soul thriving in an increasingly modern world, and somehow she makes it look easy. Recombining traditional folk and blues elements to fit her unique artistic vision seems to be her forte, and there’s something terribly romantic about her music that constantly tugs at the heartstrings.”
- BestNewBands.com
“If Tom Waits and Regina Spektor spawned a child it would be the talented Jess Hill. She writes colorful music that lifts her poems to new heights. I say poems because they do not feel like ordinary song lyrics. This is folk music with a slightly electronic feel over it, it takes a few spins to get into the album and still I find new things to discover in the songs.”
– Melodic.net
“Imagine, if you will, a sunny Sunday morning. The type of morning that you greet rather late, having stayed in bed just breathing in the sunlight, and enjoying the feeling of not having to do anything particularly important for the rest of the day. The type of morning where it’s warm in the sun, and cool and crisp in the shade. You there? Can you dig? What are you missing? Perhaps a soundtrack to this beautiful day? Well, luckily for you Jess Hill has the answer: her new album entitled “Orchard”. The songs are simply beautiful poetry and stories strung along by elegant melodies…this album never ceased to impress me. There’s just something about her vocals that have the ability to make you stop, smile and relax.”
– The Take Media
“Song stuck in my head: “Stagger” by Jess Hill. Vancouver-based folk noir singer-songwriter Jess Hill has a haunting quality to her voice that perfectly compliments her storytelling lyrics. Her newest CD, Orchard, is filled with stinging emotions and raw energy that skillfully moves from blues-draped guitar to folk to alt-country and back again.”
– Monday Magazine
“Combining a flawless lyrical voice with innovative finger-picking guitar, Jess Hill sets a tender but solid foundation for the progressive but tastefully luxurious orchestrations by arranger-producer Aaron Joyce on her new album Orchard. Dipping into the shadows of progressive folk and evolving greatly in complexity from her debut Road (2006), Orchard creates a strong statement of the potential for the organic use of studio engineering, the fusion of orchestration and noise, and the future of song-writing in Canada.”
– CJ Leon (BC poet, performer & zombie lover)
“The show was the CD release of Orchard, the new album from Vancouver’s Jess Hill. Her powerful voice blended excellently with the great string arrangements. Highlights were the song that first hooked me on Jess Hill, “Orchard“, the building intensity of “Stagger” and the eerily haunting (pun fully intended) “Give Me Your Ghost”, with included a saw for added atmosphere. She ended the set with a pair of songs I have seen a few times ["Don't Cry" and "Grow"], the first just her singing, and getting the crowd to scream at a couple points, then launching into a fast paced closer. Jess also had great charisma on stage, with some charmingly-nervous banter and story telling, giving the night a real intimate feel. None of the venues I’ve seen Jess in have been all that big, but I have a feeling she would be able to make a room of any size feel as intimate as a coffee house.”
– 3am Revelations
“Immediately personable, she softly spoke into the mike as if she were whispering to her closest friend and she sang as if she were playing to an open field of dying flowers at twilight. Jess Hill’s voice was spot on, barely trembling in all the right places.”
– Beyond Robson
“A staple of the indie music scene in Vancouver.”
– BC Almanac, CBC
“I have been following her career on and off for the last three or four years and I must say this CD named Orchard is her best work. She hasn’t lost the folk touch but it seems her music has evolved into a more professional myriad of sounds. Her voice is taunting, mysterious and a dark, it is Noir Folk with touches of blues. In her world there is nature in forms of trees and birds (crows specially) and the moon, there are ghosts stories, deserted landscapes, black and white afternoons, night shadows and love stories. Its sad but beautiful at the same time…I can recommend it to you widely, it will be one of the best singer songwriters album of the year.”
– VanMusic.ca