Devin Hoff - Fort Collins, CO / New York, NY

Devin Hoff artist photo

Biography

Devin Hoff is a bassist and composer who has collaborated with Julia Holter, Sharon Van Etten, Shannon Lay, Nels Cline, Ava Mendoza, Vijay Iyer, Jewlia Eisenberg, Cibo Matto, Deerhoof, Good For Cows, and many other creative musicians and bands.

As a solo artist Devin has released 4 records, the first of which, Solo Bass (2008), was named by avant-pop icon Laurie Anderson as one of her top 5 favorite records of all time.

On Hoff’s latest release, Voices From the Empty Moor (KRS, 2021), the music of Anne Briggs is reinterpreted through an upright bass-focused lens, and features contributions from Holter, Van Etten, Howard Wiley, Alejandro Farha, and more. Voices…was featured as The Guardian’s Folk Music Record of the Month upon its release in November 2021, and was named one of Folk Radio UK’s top albums of the year. 

Recent Press

". . . it’s Hoff’s wondrous, voice-like playing and richly detailed arrangements that are at the heart of the revelatory Voices from the Empty Moor." - Jazz Times

". . . experimental but accessible, an album that looks backwards for inspiration but is entirely contemporary in feel." - FolkRadio.co.uk

"That an American from Colorado can translate these songs with such brilliance suggests that Hoff’s Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs) is the kind of radical reassessment that can bring these songs into the 21st century." - For Folks Sake

★★★☆☆ - The Guardian

"Many artists have covered Briggs’ music in the past and made each composition their own, but very few have adapted her material as if they’re actively living it at the same time." - Record Crates United

Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)
Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)
Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)
Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)

Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)

• KILL ROCK STARS DEBUT
• LIMITED EDTION SEA FOAM VINYL
• Features contributions from singers Julia Holter, Shannon Lay, Sharon Van Etten and Emmett Kelly; oud player Alejandro Farha; saxophonist Howard Wiley and drummer Jim White.


Voices From the Empty Moor seeks to honor the mystery and beauty of Anne Briggs’ music while maintaining its own unique perspective, foregrounding powerful emotion and, hopefully, magical transformation.

Bassist, composer and arranger devin hoff has been intensively studying the music of Anne Briggs for over a decade. Briggs was a leading light of the 1960’s English folk scene, a gifted songwriter and improvisor, as well as an amateur musicologist who revived traditional English, Scottish, and Irish Traveler songs with an unpretentious approach that perhaps presaged the rebellion of punk as much as it honored tradition.

The arrangements here include collaborations with musician friends that share a fascination with mining specific folk forms for universal and timeless truths; singers Julia Holter, Shannon Lay, Sharon Van Etten and Emmett Kelly; oud player Alejandro Farha; saxophonist Howard Wiley and drummer Jim White.

1. She Moved Through the Fair
2. Go Your Way
3. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
4. Maa Bonny Lad

5. Living By the Water
6. The Snow It Melts the Soonest/My Bonny Boy
7. Black Waterside
8. Willie O’ Winsbury
9. The Lowlands

Cat. No. KRS711
Release date: November 12, 2021

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