Artist: Rhiannon Giddens
Album: Factory Girl
Genre: Folk
Release Date: 2015
Audio Format:: FLAC (tracks) 24 bit, 96 kHz
Duration: 20:45
Total Tracks: 5
Total Size: 445 MB

Tracklist:

01. Rhiannon Giddens – That Lonesome Road (03:05)
02. Rhiannon Giddens – Mouth Music (02:52)
03. Rhiannon Giddens – Moonshiner’s Daughter (03:58)
04. Rhiannon Giddens – Underneath the Harlem Moon (03:49)
05. Rhiannon Giddens – Factory Girl (06:58)

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On the heels of her highly acclaimed solo debut Tomorrow Is My Turn, Rhiannon Giddens’s five-song EP Factory Girl is released on Nonesuch Records.

As with Tomorrow Is My Turn, Giddens again records traditional songs and rethinks ones written or made famous by her musical heroes Ethel Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharp. Giddens co-wrote, with her sister Lalenja Harrington and Burnett, “Moonshiner’s Daughter,” which draws inspiration from family lore about her great-grandfather, a notorious rum-runner. A traditional Gaelic mouth music tune also is featured, along with the title track, a traditional Irish song for which Giddens, deeply troubled by the 2013 factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,100 workers, wrote additional lyrics.

The sessions for the album and EP took place in Los Angeles and Nashville, with a multi-generational group of players assembled by Burnett. Musicians on Factory Girl include Burnett; fiddle player Gabe Witcher and double bassist Paul Kowert of label-mates Punch Brothers; percussionist Jack Ashford of Motown’s renowned Funk Brothers; drummer Jay Bellerose; guitarist Colin Linden; veteran Nashville session bassist Dennis Crouch; and Giddens’s Carolina Chocolate Drops touring band-mates, multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins and beat-boxer Adam Matta.Released in late 2015 as a sort of companion piece to her full-length solo debut from earlier in the year, Rhiannon Giddens’ Factory Girl EP offers an additional five tracks of defiantly reinvented folk, blues, country, and even Celtic music. Recorded with T-Bone Burnett during the same sessions that produced the acclaimed Tomorrow Is My Turn, the Carolina Chocolate Drops frontwoman feels right at home on the brassy blues of “That Lonesome Road” and the jazzy “Underneath the Harlem Moon,” though her rum-running-inspired original track, “Moonshiner’s Daughter,” is the obvious highlight of this brief set. While Giddens’ fearless attempt at a traditional Gaelic vocal style on “Mouth Music” feels like a bit of a stumble, this EP is, for the most part, a worthy addendum to her excellent debut. –AllMusic Review by Timothy Monger