
Last week, Boston folksinger Avi Jacob released So Hard to Reach You (Bandcamp) – seven tracks of deeply emotional songwriting set against a mix of genre-spanning sounds, meshing old time folk, modern folk rock and darker Americana.

Jacob notes that the album’s title stems from a six year relationship he had with one woman. In some emails with me earlier this week, he noted that the whole album is about that relationship and that it ended once he realized “it was utterly impossible to get through to her emotionally.”
While the album’s title track is probably my favorite, I’m also a fan of “Cold Wind Blows.” Here’s what he says about that one.
‘I wrote [Cold Wind Blows] in 2008. I imagined it as a song about killing your lover. “Her mouth it just froze, I grabbed the closest thing around the neck, and rung it til it rang like a bell, God help me,” which was a metaphor for another relationship where I just didn’t know how to do it…how to really love someone without wanting to completely possess them, and be really self destructive as well.’
INTENSE. Check out the aforementioned tracks below as well as this video of another song I like that’s not on the album. Jacob is planning to hit NYC in this spring.