Following in the style of her first two Nonesuch releases, the self-titled 1990 debut and Rockabye (1992), Robin Holcomb’s third release, The Big Time, finds the acclaimed songwriter reunited with producer Wayne Horvitz in her first collection of new songs in a decade. The house band for The Big Time is Horvitz’s Zony Mash—Keith Lowe (Fiona Apple, David Sylvian, G-Love) on bass, Timothy Young (David Sylvian) on guitar, drummer Andy Roth, and Horvitz on Hammond organ, plus guitarist Bill Frisell. Special guests include Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Julie Wolf (Ani DiFranco Band), Doug Wieselman, Danny Barnes (The Bad Livers), and violist Eyvind Kang.

The songs on The Big Time evoke an atmospheric musical world reflective of Holcomb’s diverse musical influences: "I Want to Tell the Story" comes from a song cycle she wrote called "Angels at the Four Corners," based on people Holcomb knew while sharecropping tobacco in North Carolina; "A Lazy Farmer Boy" and "Engine 143" are two songs from The Anthology of American Folk Music that she arranged when invited to participate in Hal Willner's Harry Smith tribute concerts in London, New York, and Los Angeles; "Lullaby" was written while working with choreographer Joe Goode in San Francisco; and "Sit Right Down" comes from a Stephen Foster project she’s begun, writing songs based on characters from his life.

The rest of the songs, Holcomb says, “have been written over the past few years and recorded with good friends in Seattle. I had the additional pleasure of singing with Kate and Anna McGarrigle on a few songs; we met years ago sharing a concert at the Riverside Church in New York City. As Billy Bragg said that day ‘I heard the angels sing ...’”

Robin Holcomb’s perspective on her art has been forged by rich and varied musical experiences, from her development of an individual solo piano style to her work with chamber ensembles, Indonesian gamelans, improvising orchestras and musical theater. Having lived in the deep South, on the West Coast and in New York City, her surroundings have also played a key role in her musical development. Equally influenced by popular, folk, contemporary classical, and avant-garde music, Holcomb is the rare artist who synthesizes all of these seemingly disparate elements into something truly her own.