There’s a kind of focus that comes with time—a clarity of purpose, of place, of voice. On their new album, I’m With Her steps fully into that knowing. What began as a serendipitous union among Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins has grown into something cohesive and deeply felt—not just a band but a shared language.
Wild and Clear and Blue, the second full-length offering from this modern roots trio—with seven Grammy wins and 31 nominations among them—is a kind of chamber folk that is both otherworldly and muscular, as if Joni Mitchell collaborated with minimalist composer Terry Riley in a Catskills chapel. The arrangements are rustic but current; the harmonies, tight but never smug, infuse the record with a sense of quiet inventiveness—another standout from one of modern folk’s most transcendent collectives.
On the opening track, “Ancient Light,” the trio slips effortlessly into a 7/4 groove like it’s the most natural thing in the world, fiddle and cello unfurling like a flower in bloom, Jarosz’s voice calm and sure as she sings, “I’ve been a long time coming.” She has—and so has the band. Beneath it all, O’Donovan’s Collings 01 Mh provides a subtle but crucial pulse, delivering a warm, midrange-rich foundation that blends beautifully with Watkins’ fiddle and the low end of her cello. Jarosz, known for her deft picking, plays a 1964 Guild S-50 Jet Star electric that cuts cleanly through arrangements without overpowering, creating a textured interplay of rhythm and melody that rewards repeat listens.
If their 2018 debut, See You Around, was stripped and intimate—a porchlight glowing warmly against the dark—Wild and Clear and Blue is that same house shot from above, its golden glow pulsing within a vast and swirling night. Producer Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, Bob Weir, the National) keeps the palette mostly acoustic but always grooving. Cello, lap steel, Wurlitzer, and the ever-present shimmer of Watkins’ fiddle (at turns hypnotic and atmospheric, at others dazzlingly fluent and nimble) gather with quiet, unshakable elegance. With drummer JT Bates (Andrew Bird, Taylor Swift) lending a loose, expressive touch and Kaufman creatively coloring the edges with everything from harmonium to transistor organ, Wild and Clear and Blue trades restraint for momentum, pushing I’m With Her’s familiar blend of folk tale and personal confession into more urgent, electric terrain.
The emotional landscape is broad. “Standing on the Fault Line,” led by Watkins, hovers at the intersection of movement and memory. “Mother Eagle (Sing Me Alive)” floats in the rarified space between grief and gratitude. And the breakneck and bluegrassy “Find My Way to You” reminds us that joy, too, is sacred—with tightly interlocking rhythm guitars driving the tempo in tandem with Watkins’ exuberant fiddle, and Jarosz adding crisp, syncopated accents on mandolin.
Throughout Wild and Clear and Blue, light is a recurring image and theme. It is presence, force, memory, and hope; appearing as both guide and veil, sometimes breaking through blinds or skylines, sometimes hidden deep in the soil where “the crust of the earth [is] untouched by light.” There’s the invocation of sun as spirit (“the sun’s like a blanket on me”), and the aching reach toward vanishing glow (“wishing on a setting star,” “losing light”). In these songs, light is ancestral, elemental, sacred—something you chase, something you contain, something that waits on the other side.
There’s a healing alchemy in these three voices breathing as one, like a spell they’ve studied, perfected, and now conjure and wield with careful reverence. Theirs is a coven of sound and spirit—and because these are lifelong artists who’ve not only deepened their trust in themselves but in each other, they are never singing to outshine, but rather to see one another more clearly, to help us see ourselves. With Wild and Clear and Blue, I’m With Her offers something radical: intention without preciousness, virtuosity without ego.