Dreams of Breathing Underwater

Album Review

Fiddler, singer and songwriter Eliza Carthy, inheritor of the mightiest musical genes in all of England (her father is folk legend Martin Carthy, her mother the equally legendary singer Norma Waterson), has always exhibited a wonderfully healthy willingness to break out of the folk music ghetto without ever feeling the need to turn her back on it entirely, and this album sees her really coming into her own as an artist. Songs like the blues-rocking "Follow the Dollar" and the soulful, almost trip-hoppy "Rows of Angels" clearly demonstrate her nearly effortless ability to rock out powerfully in a not-entirely-straightforward way, while weird and eerie tracks like "Two Tears" and "Simple Things" expose a darker, more troubled side of her muse that sounds like it's been steeped a bit too long in Tom Waits' back catalog. At her best, she flexes musical muscles that are unlike any you're likely to encounter anywhere else: notice, for example, the deeply complex "Little Bigman," a song that simultaneously evokes the British music hall, doo wop, '60s skiffle, and even traditional village bands, all as a setting for a wonderful vocal arrangement that never sounds quite as complicated as it actually is. And "Simple Things" takes horribly twisted guitars and a skittering funk beat and presses them into service behind what sounds like one of the most passionate and ambivalent love songs ever written. Not every moment is brilliant — if it were, she'd be inhuman, and "Mr. Magneto" is indeed more than a bit self-indulgent (though the flamenco handclaps are a nice touch). But what's not brilliant is at least interesting, and easily 80-percent of it is brilliant.