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Patricia Ossowski, What Would You Believe?
This is keyboard-based precision-pop with sophisticated production, lush soundscapes, and powerful lyrics: "while you here always looking for a miracle while i just slowly drown/and you here always saying I'm beautiful but i just can’t be found." Some of the songs, like "Luminous" and "Please Don't Go," have memorable hooks; some rock ("Lucky Me," "Broken Me"); and many have haunting harmonies and evoke truly chilling moods. The songs are about relationships mostly, but Ossowski has her own poetic and pithy way of looking at things, as in "Broken Me": "i try to find a reason try to live through all argument/weigh the damage in both hands and i start to miss you/i turn around through your eyes see the view from here/what a wreck i appear to be and i start to miss you."
But Ossowski has a hard time matching her vocals to her passionate lyrics and dramatic arrangements. Soft, precise singing has its place; it can have the effect of turning a single word or phrase, or a very compressed little melody, into a valid hook, as it does here in "Lucky Me" and "Please Don't Go." But Ossowski lacks the vocal range and power that allows a Grace Slick or a Tori Amos to make the most of their quietly intense moments. Perhaps that's part of why "Lucky Me" stands out on this CD - its tight vocal harmonies and machine-like beat reinforce each other like strands of a rope.
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Cantrell Maryott, Moving, Not Leaving
Cantrell Maryott also sings in a controlled style, but with more variation. The opening track, "Do You Remember," shows that she can sing and write a bluesy torch song with the best of them, while its solo section proves Mitzi Cowell a masterful guitarist and Philippe Pfeiffer (Maryott's primary co-writer) a pianist of exquisite skill and taste. (It's nice to get a CD that sounds this good from a part of the Universe I'm totally unfamiliar with - Ashland, OR - filled with wonderful performances by musicians whose names are totally new to me.)
Maryott is originally from Arizona, and there's something of the desert in her spacious songwriting. "Do You Remember" is the only torchy track; it leads into "Carry On," a lovely folk-gospel tune with angelic harmonies, and "Amelie," a wee folk ballad which, except for Maryott's use of vibrato on the vocals, wouldn't have sounded out of place on the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. However, the song bears some of the New Age coloring that characterizes most of the rest of the CD, which is thereby less varied and somewhat less interesting.
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