Trip-folk. Liquid & delicate yet compelling female vocals. Minimal and often dreamy instrumentation--acoustic and synthetic. Tasty, tasty percussion. Outstanding songwriting--coming eerily close to the ways that love feels for me. Magical. This is her 4th LP, originally released this past February on UK label Bella Union. Veirs hails form Seattle by way of Colorado. All-star lineup (The Tortured Souls) includes percussionist Tucker Martine (has worked with Bill Frisell, Jim White, Modest Mouse) and viola player Eyvind Kang (plays with Beck and Bill Frisell). All mid-tempo unless noted. No FCC’s. All songs strong. Play what you like or start with 1, 5, 7.
http://lauraveirs.com

==> 1. Acoustic guitar, whispy percussion, & synths. Dream imagery. Black as 4 am on a moonless night. “All the time spent dreaming is never lost. Dreams come back through the bells of trumpeting horns.”
2. Off-kilter, whimsical marching feel with jumpy melody. Banjo, strings, and guitar. “I can hold a thunderhead in my heart. And in my bed I can dream a winter’s gale and wake up drenched.”
3. Mid-slow. Quiet. Starts with just guitar and double-tracked vocals. Bell-like synths and strings come in on soaring chorus. Lots of artistic & literary references. Ends with several seconds of quiet ambient sounds.
4. Slow and quiet. A trippy lullaby. “Ice crystals form from flakes of heaven, fall down, weightless to the earth.”
==> 5. Starts with (and features) heavily processed drums. The most radio-ready, danceable song on the CD but totally gorgeous anyway.
6. Acoustic guitar and dry vocals. Sounds a touch like Young People doing straight folk. Bells and strings join the guitar during the bridge, then stick around.
==> 7. Slow, minor key folk with male background vocals. “I’ve learned that love is scared of light. A thousand seeds from a flower blowing through the night.” Delicious electronics simmer along underneath in this sad love song.
8. Light, whimsical little instrumental rag. Ends with several seconds of vinyl noise.
9. Slow and quiet and rather similar in feel to track 3. “I saw the violet turn to night. I saw the water turn to ice. A thousand snowflakes hovered around me.”
10. Slow. Finger-picked electric guitar and multi-tracked vocals. Solipsistic, sad ballad told in the first person.
11. More electric guitar, with distortion this time, plus processed violin. No percussion. Heartrending, autobiographical diary entry by a ship. Yes, a ship.
12. Quiet, ambient, trippy interregnum instrumental. Starts with several seconds of silence, then comes in very slowly, reaching full volume about a minute in, then slowly fades away.
13. Quiet, personal folk ballad about being lost but knowing where you are. Acoustic guitar & strings plus kick-drum-only percussion. Lovely.