Leah Callahan is one of the best and most original female singer songwriter albums I've heard all year. She has a delicate, jazzy voice, an eccentric viewpoint and a knack for spidery arrangements, minimal yet surprisingly strong and varied. Supported by the barest of instruments -- the plunk of upright bass, the moan of accordion, the stop and start of acoustic guitar -- she swoons and swirls above the fray. There are songs that sound like Gypsy folktunes, others that could waft up from a Brazilian beach, but all share a slightly off-kilter wit and subtlety that is rare in any format.
Callahan, a veteran of such Boston-based bands as Turkish Delight, Betwixt and Butterfield 8, is supported by fellow Bostonian Shaun Wolf Wortis, who produced Even Sleepers and plays guitar on most of the tracks. The production is miraculously uncluttered, allowing the natural grace of Callahan's voice and the odd sinuosity of her songs to shine through. All the tracks are strong, but some are really excellent. My favorites here are the melancholy, blue-noted "Vampire Heart", the surpassingly light and Latin "The Sadness I Admire" and the woozy, piano driven cabaret of "Shocking Pink" (Sample lyric: "I wish I could be drunk all the time.")
Here's wishing that Leah Callahan gets to keep doing exactly what she wants -- confounding fashion, expectations and those annoying "sounds like" comparisons. This is great stuff, pure communication wrapped in art, and we could use much more like it.
