HopMonk Novato Session Room

*Friday, February 17, 8:00 pm show

Jesca Hoop returns with her sixth album, Order of Romance, a record that fortifies her position as one of the most striking and original voices in contemporary music. Order of Romance is Hoop's most intricate and finely balanced album to date, one that draws on classic song writing, recalling anything from Gershwin to Paul Simon, but creating something that is unmistakably, indelibly Jesca Hoop.

Like a lot of tour ready musicians in 2020, Jesca Hoop suddenly found she had time on her hands, and  like a lot of musicians, with stages blacked out, she turned her work inward. As it was for many people, those housebound days were some of the most tumultuous of her life, and she found the discipline and balance of a daily writing routine essential in coping with the unknowns that assailed us all during that time.

But Order of Romance is most assuredly not a journaling of the last two years. It is a deep dive intocraft. As Jesca says “I set out to mature as a writer, to further clarity my voice and stance, throughmelodies and phrases only I can construct. Order of Romance feels like every person, character, or artist,I ever was over the many seasons of my life was handed an instrument to play across the songs.”

In the summer of 2021, Hoop once again ventured south from her adopted home of Manchester to Bristolto team up with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding), her collaborator for 2019’sStonechild. This time additional assistance came from in Jess Vernon (This is the Kit) to arrange for a four-piece horn and woodwind quintet. Legendary drummer Seb Rochford lent his skills, John Thorne plays the bass and Chloe Foy and Rachel Rimmer were enlisted to deliver Hoop’s signature vocal arrangements.

The result is a fruitful marriage of song craft and arrangement, brimming with a cinematic charm and lyrical wit that signify a new chapter full of new life for an artist