Singer-songwriter Jen Wood has been a fixture of Seattle’s indie music scene since the early ’90s, when she formed her first band at age 15 with school friend Madigan Shive and released two LPs as folk punk duo Tattle Tale before they went their separate ways. Wood went on to release several EPs and LPs as a solo musician and her sweet, elegant soprano has guest starred in records by The Postal Service, Joan of Arc and Black Heart Procession, among others. Finds You In Love is Wood’s first full-length release in eight years and her debut effort on Tampa label New Granada Records, which dropped the album in March, then laded a bigger distribution deal and re-released it in September.
According to Wood, Finds You In Love “is about finding the light inside the darkest places of my mind and my past.” Wood sets a deliberate down-tempo pace and moody tone from the very beginning, the instrumental arrangements on the 11-song album swaying and sparse, or soaring to subtly exquisite heights and marked by slow groove-oriented basslines, light guitar and piano melodies, and ambient waves of strings, the same sonic elements Wood also uses to create moments of slowly-building drama.
This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2010.