A sensual, esoteric singer/songwriter whose odd, sparse songs nod to influences like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Vashti Bunyan, Jesca Hoop got her big break thanks to her gig as a nanny for Tom Waits' offspring in the early 2000s. Hoop had grown up in a musically inclined Mormon family, but left the fold soon after her parents separated. She traveled around California, Wyoming, and Arizona writing songs and honing her craft before settling down with the Waits family for five years as their nanny. Waits took a liking to Hoop's off-beat indie pop songs — songs that in their way linked her with so-called "New Weird Americans" like Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Faun Fables — and... ... More