Jarnagin Music 2016
Heart Percent
Wearing it on her sleeve and aiming at taking it to the limit, positive-vibe artist expands her butterfly-wing palette.
The success of her vocal debut – it was all instrumental prior to 2014’s “Bullseye” – has given Jenny Jarnagin the wings to fly higher and further. Back in the U.S. after a stint in Canada, the singer added electronic texture to the natural timbre of her previous work and came up with this EP which marries non-intrusive dance grooves to intimate playfulness. The result is irresistible from the moment JJ’s silky voice and piano in a harpsichord guise lead “It’s Not Right” towards an infectious chorus of a cosmic cabaret kind, although that’s quite coquettish from someone so original to be pretending there’s a need for being real and free.
Jenny’s classical background – drenched in strings and wrapped around the blues in “Like A River” – may make her look like another nocturnal chanteuse exploring an elegant reverie of the wee small hours, yet “It’s Time” takes the no-more-blissful fatigue to an empty discotheque floor. That’s where the beats of “Stand On” seep through a guitar twang, before “When Love Is Gone” is swelled up to reach almost spiritual transcendence on a one-hundred percent level. It’s a heartbreaking mini-album, but there’s a lot of solace in it.
***4/5
