Jolie Holland

It isn’t much, this tiny cubbyhole in the back of a four-room San Francisco apartment. Crammed with countless collectibles, plus a vintage player piano and several toy accordions, it’s barely big enough to house necessities like a bed, stereo system and writing desk. But for peripatetic folk-punker Jolie Holland—who by her own estimation has “never stayed in one place longer than two months”—it’s home, sweet home. As soon as she owned a car, she pinballed from her native Houston to Austin, New Orleans, Northern Louisiana, and Vancouver (where she formed, then quit, The Be Good Tanyas) finally settling in the Bay Area seven years ago. “This is the first time I’ve ever lived somewhere where there’s no forseeable end in sight,” proudly purrs the 28-year-old songstress, a bespectacled spitting image of Thora Birch’s kooky Ghost World brat. The monthly rent: A nominal $400. “But I used to pay only $150 across the street,” she adds. “Which really helped me get my album together.”

Catalpa—the self-released, partially home-taped record in question—generated enough of an indie-scene buzz last year to land Holland a distribution deal with the Anti- imprint (home to Tom Waits, a big Holland booster). Named for a flowering tree with white bell-shaped blossoms and heart-shaped leaves, the album is steeped in the primal minimalism of the singer’s idols—Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and the Carter Family. Gothic dirges like “Alley Flowers,” “Ghost Waltz” and “I Wanna Die”—make the similarly stripped-down Gillian Welch sound positively Polyphonic Spree in comparison. Other haunted cuts like “The Littlest Birds” and “All The Morning Birds,” she says, are very inspired by nature. “I lived outside for almost all of 1996. I lived in a tepee and this,” she says pulling out a photograph of a Conestoga-topped pickup truck, “and was a professional street musician for years. I played violin on the street for money, and it was barely subsistence level.” Her food? “One samosa a day, and the rest came from dumpster diving.” Fans have repeatedly told Holland that Catalpa sounds like a scratchy old Victrola cranking up some dusty ’78. She’s pleased with this response. Currently, she’s on a retro-gospel kick, collecting antiquated songs like the Lomaxes gathered field recordings. Is the nomad happy to finally have a home and hearth? In retrospect, she’s taken a Zen-like view of her wanderings. “I didn’t settle down for a long time, and now I’m glad I didn’t. It definitely took a toll on my health, but me keeping moving was exactly what I needed to do to make everything that’s happened, happen. I’ve always had some weird sense of destiny that’s kept me hopping around.”