On her sophomore album, contemporary singer/songwriter
Jessie Baylin
finds herself on the
Verve Forecast
label, home to
Ledisi
,
Liz Wright
Dion
Brazilian Girls
Zucchero
Kate Walsh
, and
Steve Winwood
, to name a few.
Firesight
is also
Baylin
's first album to be released as a physical object; her debut,
You
, was produced by
Jesse Harris
and released digitally.
Harris
is still in the picture here -- he co-wrote four of the album's 11 cuts, and plays guitar on them -- but it's
Roger Moutenot
in the producer's chair this time out.
Moutenot
's resume is wildly varied. In addition to producing six albums for
Yo La Tengo
and
The Hot Rock
for
Sleater-Kinney
the New Amsterdams
, he's been an engineer at least as long as he's been a producer. Some of his clients include
Elvis Costello
John Zorn
Bill Frisell
Paula Cole
Patti Scialfa
Freedy Johnston
Gillian Welch
Josh Rouse
Heather Eatman
.
has taken these strictly modern urban pop songs and made them almost extraordinary.
is 24 as of this writing, and while very talented, she writes with the angst and wiry, unfocused passion of an artist who has many heroes but hasn't found her own voice -- yet.
knows how that sounds and how to record it. The proof is in the very first track,
"See How I Run."
He took those feelings and the accompanying identity crisis -- portrayed by very clever turns of phrase in a country-ish tune -- and framed them into a reverb-laden but sparkling midtempo ballad (co-written with
, who provided the gorgeous melody). It's got a lot of the loose backbone that
Lucinda Williams
displays in her melodies, but it's more urban than that. It's followed by another
collab in
"Leave Your Mark."
One of three songs recut from
, it's adorned in enormous cellos, shuffling trancelike snare drums, mandolins, acoustic guitars, and banjos, underscoring and surrounding exceptionally unhinged lyrics. It feels like the Laurel Canyon sound of the 1970s brought home to the 21st century.
and her small band wrote a strictly "modern rock" tune in
"Not a Day More"
(a song that was made for a movie soundtrack if there ever were one), and
gets the right rhythmic pulse down cold. He wraps her voice in just enough smoke and mystery to get her lyrics across, and transforms the guitars to sound like extensions of
Mick Ronson
playing with
David Bowie
. But there's more than this -- the piano ballad
"Lonely Heaven,"
written with
Greg Wells
(with
Will Kimbrough
guesting on guitar), brings her limited vocal range to bear in a vulnerable, tender, but streetwise ballad. You can hear traces of
Carole King
but also
Marianne Faithfull
in her delivery, with its reedy low-end warble. Ultimately,
will appeal to those who bought
Rachael Yamagata
's
Happenstance
or even
Norah Jones
' more rootsy material with
Charlie Hunter
. The songs are well-crafted, carefully arranged, and beautifully recorded. The appeal lies as much in
's delivery as it does in her songwriting and
's recording. ~ Thom Jurek