Despite her associations-- Devendra Banhart and Vetiver's Andy Cabic, primarily-- singer-songwriter Jana Hunter has nearly nothing to do with the 1960s or any emulation thereof. But pigeonholing is a common sentence for artists with more presswinning friends. Her music can be fanciful, but her primary modes are dreamy and desolate-- Cat Power before she modeled jeans, or early Will Oldham without the beery stoicism. If there's any period Hunter recalls, it's a certain strain of indie in the mid- to late-1990s, when being weak-limbed and simple were virtues, when a band like Mazzy Star could actually get on the radio with a song that sounded like it was recorded while they were lying down, and when sounding like you were lying down was actually a selling point in specialty markets.
Carrion, a six-song EP split between new songs and demos from this spring's There's No Home, doesn't do much but mark time. Hunter's records are so understated that listening to demos is oxymoronic. The demo of "There's No Home" sounds like the album version, but played under a blanket and without drums on the minute-long coda. "Oracle" sounds the same, just without piano. Hunter's voice-- a waxy, passive baritone could pass for a man pining for his upper registers-- is often comforting, but again, it was comforting six months ago.
Two of the new songs here are merely all right, but "Paint a Babe" makes it hard to write Carrion off. It's a nightcap, or the closest Hunter's ever been to a come-on. Understanding her lyrics is nearly impossible. She's sad, drunk, has a cold, or the brutally attractive combination of all three. She's a singer, though-- where enunciated English fails, her voice acts as a tickle, a glance. Following her doesn't feel like a weighted decision, just a logical event, the next step in a lovely, graceless amble.
Hunter's a born Texan on a mostly bi-coastal scene rife with high style and affectation. In a recent New York Times article on Devendra Banhart, Jon Pareles noted that "more and more, it looks as if he wants to encompass the entire late 1960s." Not that there's anything wrong with affectation or high style, but it's just not what Hunter's music is about. She's very uncool that way. Which, in itself, is a distinguishing mark. For all her weariness, she's confident enough in her voice and song to realize that no attendant dick-wagging is especially necessary. Even if it's hard to imagine anyone really needing Carrion, it's nice to know that a contemporary folkie-- for whatever you think of contemporary indie-folk-- knows the value of a quiet gesture.
