Sami Wolf is unlike anyone else at the moment. She’s a self-declared Jewish-addict-lesbian-rapper, and wants that piece of the market cornered. Her Chicago roots provide a husk around her sometimes-sweet voice on her newest record See You On The Moon. The 7 song EP goes back and forth from intimate-laden pop, to spoken word hip-hop, to tender love ballads but with none fading too far right or left of Sami Wolf’s natural sound. I believe that she would feel as home in a Riot Grrl band as she would in a Crunk palace in the deep south. It’s good, needs some fine-tuning, but a good.
Album opener, “Mother” made famous by Danzig, is a tremendous cover song, where Wolf slows down the aggression, and showcases the melody in a different light. “You Make Me Smile” and “The Shovel Song” showcases Wolf’s songwriting ability. “The hip-hop on “Driving 90” through me for a loop, but wasn’t done horribly, I think I was just expecting something other worldly, and received something more terrestrial. “Heart in Tennessee” begins a heartfelt piano – breathy ballad with Wolf’s rhymes on blast, where they work wonderfully, not overly cooked, just the right amount of angst. The record ends with the Carole King penned Shirelles hit “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”, a laid-back cover version much in the same vein as “Mother” with Wolf’s rolling vocals leaning hard on each passionate vowel.
Wolf runs the gamut through genre’s; within songs and around her compositions, blasting them wide open. It works, and we all should want to see more of it.