Talks & Entertainment

Valerie June has traveled a long road to the remarkable moment at which the soulful singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist now finds herself. By the time she released her debut album, Pushin’ Against A Stone, the Tennessee native has already performed on Later… with Jools Holland, sung a stunning duet with Eric Church at the ACM Awards, toured with Jake Bugg, graced spreads in top music and fashion magazines, and earned some of the year’s most glowing reviews.

Recorded at Easy Eye in Nashville, Fairfax Recording in Van Nuys, CA, and Studio H in Budapest, her first album is a showcase for June’s astonishing and singular sound, a blend of rural roots and country that bridges Alan Lomax’s acoustic field recordings with biting, electric indie-blues.

From the slide guitar shuffle of “You Can’t Be Told” and heavenly harmonies of traditional spiritual “Trials, Troubles, Tribulations,” to the stark, acoustic “Workin’ Woman Blues” and the uncanny darkness of “Twined and Twisted,” June effortlessly shifts between eras and genres. She can be haunting and melancholy, singing of loneliness on “Somebody To Love,” or full of warmth and charm, fondly recalling her home on “Tennessee Time.” At one moment seductive in a sensual come-on, fragile and vulnerable the next in a display of naked honesty, June transports you to another world the moment you hear her voice.