Sierra Hull 25 Trips LP

TAS Rated 4.5/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the September 2020 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

One Of TAS' Ten Best Roots Albums of 2020!

Sierra Hull's latest release 25 Trips further establishes her as a powerhouse instrumentalist, vocalist, and esteemed song-writer. 25 Trips is a genre-transcending album emerging from the world of folk-pop, bluegrass, and acoustic music. Produced by Shani Ghandi (Parker Millsap), and featuring guest appearances by the estimable talents of Katie Pruitt, Mindy Smith, Angel Snow, and Molly Tuttle, 25 Trips is offering up some of Hull's best collaborations to date.

Sierra Hull releases 25 Trips, the eagerly-anticipated follow-up to her groundbreaking Grammy®-nominated 2016 album Weighted Mind. Co-produced by Hull and producer/engineer Shani Gandhi (The Mountain Goats, Sara Watkins, Dwight Yoakam), 25 Trips continues the musical journey begun on Weighted Mind, a body of work that built off Hull's bluegrass roots and ventured into entirely new terrain.

But while its predecessor assumed a sparse and stripped-back palette, 25 Trips embodies a far more intricately arranged sound -- an effect achieved with the help of peers like guitarist Mike Seal, bassist Ethan Jodziewicz, violinist Alex Hargreaves, and fiddler Christian Sedelmyer, as well as several musicians that Hull has long admired (including bassist Viktor Krauss, guitarist Bryan Sutton, multi-instrumentalist Stuart Duncan, and steel guitarist Paul Franklin). Other guests who grace the album with their presence include Molly Tuttle, Ron Block, Mindy Smith, Ronnie Bowman, Katie Pruitt, Angel Snow, and Hull's husband, acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Justin Moses.

Along with integrating electric instrumentation and percussion into her material for the first time, Hull dreamed up the album's eclectic textures by embracing a free-flowing process that often gave way to lightning-in-a-bottle improvisation.

25 Trips lures the listener into its unpredictable sonic world on the beguiling opening track "Beautifully Out of Place." Although much of the album bears a rich complexity, 25 Trips also includes moments of stark simplicity that perfectly showcase Hull's stunning vocal range.

Even as its songs continually shift in genre, encompassing everything from bluegrass to folk-pop to ethereal alt-rock, 25 Trips remains rooted in the sophisticated musicianship that Hull has cultivated almost her entire life.

"One of the things I most enjoyed about making this record was getting to show the wide variety of music I love," says Hull. "I don't really know what category the album falls in, but I also think that matters less and less. What really matters to me is trusting myself to be who I am, and just putting my voice and my heart out there in the most sincere way that I possibly can."

Rooted in bluegrass, her expanded musical backdrops embrace delicate swirls of strings, electric guitar and bass, steel guitar, and ambient effects complementing her introspective approach to mandolin that underscores a sure grasp of classical styles. Her voice, still crystalline pure, is more self-aware than ever.