Ask the Night

iTunes Review

Upon Azure Ray’s break-up, Orenda Fink released her first solo album, 2005’s Invisible Ones, and began work with Art In Manila, whose debut album hit in 2007. It looked as if she was on a Ryan Adams-like tear. But the flood of activity has since come out in trickles. In early 2009, she released a debut album with her long-running O+S recording partnership with Scalpelist (Cedric Lemoyne of Remy Zero) and later in the year answered her solo career silence with the brilliant Ask the Night, her most simple and rustic album to date. “Why Is The Night Sad” delivers as its title implies, a forlorn sulk of sweet acoustic grace. “High Ground” features a hauntingly familiar folk melody with banjo and a firepit audience for backing vocals that firmly sets course for the album. Not a clunker in the batch.  “Sister,” “The Garden,” “Wind” and “The Moon Knows” all settle in with complimentary acoustic guitars, age-old melodies and country harmonies. Simply gorgeous.