ADRIANNE LENKER - Bright Future LP

Highly recommended.

Bright Future may be one of the most beautiful releases ever encountered in recent memory. At first, its songs sound deceptively simple, but they reveal more with each exposure. The album has an uncategorisable, mysterious quality, similar to the home recordings by lost folk singer Connie Converse.

Plaintive vocals, sometimes bolstered by pretty harmonies, are backed by an array of stringed instruments, including piano, acoustic and electric guitars, banjo and violins.

The stark, solo piano "Real House" sounds like a cross between the melancholy of Randy Newman and Rickie Lee Jones. "Fool," with its quirky angular arrangement, could be a Talking Heads demo recording. An aching chord progression is gorgeously displayed by only piano and violin on "Evol." Alejandro Escovedo's acoustic chamber pop is recalled on the romping "Vampire Empire," while an ethereal one note harmonic tone runs through "Ruined," ending this arresting collection on a haunting, yet satisfying note.