Christian Kiefer and Sharron Kraus
The Black Dove
(Tompkins Square)
On their first collaboration,
songwriter/brainiacs Christian Kiefer (a Ph.D. candidate in
American literature) and Sharron Kraus (a former Oxford tutor in
philosophy) deliver 15 moody, mostly acoustic tracks that have one
foot in the art house and the other in the moors. Kraus, who sings
lead on most of The Black Dove, has a softly radiant voice that invokes such
seminal Brit-folk divas as Sandy Denny and Maddy Prior; Kiefer,
whose wavering tenor is pleasant if less remarkable, has a hushed,
understated inflection that brings to mind Mark Kozelek (the Red
House Painters) and Sam Beam (Iron & Wine). Together, against a
twilit backdrop of banjos, pennywhistles, pianos, and violins, they
sound both ancient and contemporary, like a pair of time-traveling
minstrels who suddenly awaken in an underground club.
The songs draw on elemental subjects
—“The Blackest Crow,” “White Shroud,”
“The Rocks,” “A Snake and a Lion” —
which confers a curiously atavistic quality, but the execution is
so assured and unselfconscious that the overall effect is never
fusty. “On the Chase” might seem at first like an
Appalachian ballad, except that the lyrics of old-timey mountain
ditties seldom contain references to superglue, as this one does;
“Letting Go, Holding On” pits rattletrap percussion and
diaphanous drone against a minor-key vocal melody that sounds like
the missing link between the Clancy Brothers and Henry Cow. The
Kiefer-voiced “Dearest” has a more conventional
college-rock vibe, its laid-back melody enlivened by frisky
paradiddles, its banjos more Sufjan Stevens than Flatt &
Scruggs, but the variation in tone is interesting, not jarring.
Although the CD might strike some listeners as a trifle wispy in
its gentle, meandering evocations of a past that none of us is old
enough to remember, its lucid beauty is hard to dismiss.
Liz Durrett
The Mezzanine
(Warm)
When Liz Durrett was 16, her uncle
gave her a guitar and told her to write mean songs about her
parents. The story might have ended there, had her uncle/mentor not
been maverick singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt and had Durrett not
been a good deal more gifted than the average angst-addled
adolescent. The Mezzanine, the Georgia native’s second album, is a more
mature and ambitious representation of her talent than was her
debut, 2005’s Husk, a collection of songs that Durrett recorded in her
teens and sat on for the better part of a decade. Produced by
Chesnutt, who also provides savvy musical support, The Mezzanine is
a quiet but strangely emotive effort, suffused with a passion that
smolders rather than flares. “No Apology,” a threadbare
waltz punctured by feedback, xylophone, and assorted found sounds,
starts out as a lullaby and morphs into a nightmare;
“Creepyaskudzu,” with its omnichord and trombone
touches, fulfills the promise of its Southern-gothic title.
“Cup on the Counter” incorporates fragments of a taped
conversation between a 4-year-old Durrett and her grandfather,
whereas “Silent Partner,” a stately nocturne, relies on
nothing but a slightly out-of-tune piano and its squeaky damper
pedal for an effect that’s at once ravishing and eerie.
With a style that’s somewhere between
the psych-ward meditations of Cat Power and the reticent miniatures
of early Suzanne Vega, Durrett is a confessional singer who keeps
her secrets to herself. It’s no surprise, then, that the
CD’s best song and emotional centerpiece is
“Marlene,” which could be a nod to the iconic ice queen
or could just as easily be about Durrett’s cat or favorite
barista. Against a delicately plucked guitar pattern,
Durrett’s throaty alto breaks and trembles, gradually
ascending into a strangled, wordless descant that’s one part
sob, one part bel canto, and 100 percent thrilling.
