The latest single from Freya Josephine Hollick, harks back to the time of Outlaw Country in 1970s America, and her hero artists, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Young and of course Blaze Foley. The track features soaring fiddle played by none other than Nashville’s own Joshua Hedley (known for his own music but also as side man, playing fiddle for Justin Townes Earle and Jonny Fritz), and the psychedelic banjo twanging of Texas born Geoffrey Muller (Robert Ellis, Chaparelle, The Suffers et al.) also affectionately known as the internet’s Cajun Banjo.

The song is a testament to Hollick’s earlier releases, Beauty and Sorrow and The Unceremonious Junking of Me, hearing the song in its raw form. Her parts recorded live in one take at Union Street Studios, Brunswick West, by Roger Bergodaz, the spare style of recording, however, still gives us a full sounding track. Upon closing your eyes, Inevitable Sorrow takes you to the rocky crags and sunburnt canyons of a bygone era.

When asked about the origin of the track, Hollick wryly smiles. “Have you seen Tales from the Tour Bus? There is an episode of that show about Blaze Foley. When I watched it I discovered a few things. One of those things was that the suit I had been having visions of in meditation for years, a suit entirely made out of duct tape, was, in fact, something Blaze had done at one point in his career, after all he was known as the Duct Tape Messiah… but I also discovered that the day he was shot dead by Carey January, was two days before my birth. He died on February 1st 1989, in Austin, Texas, I was born on February 3rd 1989. Being of a somewhat transcendental persuasion, this to me seemed to suggest, I had been reincarnated from Blaze Foley. I may have been in a slightly altered state of mind at the time, and when I sobered, I realised perhaps my detective work was maybe delusional, but it did inspire me to write this song. And so, Inevitable Sorrow is the story of me as Blaze reincarnate, destined to a life of chasing the creation of the perfect song, and to suffer the perils of writing music that doesn’t fit the bill of the mainstream… a life sentence of sorts.”

It is perhaps Hollick’s best penned song to date, lyrically, and shows the strength of just playing the song without too many bells and whistles. True grit right there.