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HUMMING BY THE FLOWERED VINE
(Matador)
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Nashville-raised New York transplant Laura Cantrell’s third solo album is full of moments that sound crafted by the sort of person who loves songs for their little moments. Cantrell isn’t a terribly distinctive singer, but her plain, thin voice is what gives much of her stuff its emotional punch. In "14th Street," she sings boiler-plate lines about losing sleep and having your knees go weak with an audible excitement. In "Khaki & Corduroy," a Cantrell original about moving to New York, her voice falters on "the most unlikely places" — it’s a poignant musical portrait of homesickness. Producer JD Foster matches these moments with bits of thrift-shop sonics: a ribbon of clarinet here, a choral vocal passage there.
