(Indie-Pop, Singer-Songwriter) Mary Lorson & The Soubrettes - BurnBabyBurn - 2011, MP3, 320 kbps

Mary Lorson of course has some previous, staring with Madder Rose’s indie-pop, through the excellent Saint Low and then onto soundtracks, her work has gradually loosened from the generic to something more experimental. On this record she collaborates with Amelia Sauter and Leah Houghtaling, they allow her space to explore the nooks and crannies of the songs rather than take more obvious paths. ‘Mancub’ with its bah dah backing vocals and trembling organ feathering the nest beautifully for Lorson’s voice, it is as close to instant as this record gets. There are enough little hooks and sticky melodies so that the songs do stay around after they’ve finished. The songs are uniformly excellent at creating an atmosphere; ‘BurnBabyBurn’ starts with the breaking dawn, winningly portrayed by piano, bass and drums. Listening to ‘Only One Mumber 2’ made me think of the songs as perfectly pressed flowers with all the details carefully preserved. The vibrant colours had faded, nonetheless the beauty remained and enhanced by the preservation. The muted cry of horns brings a different shade to ‘Bubble of Pretend’ when the organ, piano and bass lock into a mechanical groove the songs begins to twirl as though it is a marionette pirouetting as gracefully as any human could. The record closes with an old Vaudeville song ‘I Don’t Care’ performed with both reverence and mischief (Lorson is writing a musical based on the life of Vaudeville performer Eva Tanguay). Some of the songs toward the end are less well defined than we are used to from Lorson, the record follows the same arc as her career opening as it does with ‘Busboy’ which provides the sumptuous harmonies and chattering piano that we might expect from her. Lorson is always worth listening to and this record is no exception from that rule.