Till & Mule

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Julie Lee has been consistently issuing worthy albums since 1999, often slipping through the cracks of genres and mainstream attention. Her remarkable voice adds a low-key, high-grade purity to everything she touches. For her eighth album, 2013’s Till and Mule, Lee sought out artist and composer Aaron Roche to coproduce. Together, they paint the songs with just the right tones and atmosphere to render them complete. The title track and “Never Change” certainly come with a sophistication that hails far beyond roots music and into that dreamlike netherworld so masterfully achieved by Daniel Lanois. Jason Goforth, who’d toured these songs with Lee, added his touches of pedal steel, lap steel, and harp to graduate the sound to a mystical level, while drummer Dan Burns made sure nothing was ever rushed. Roche wrote and recorded string arrangements on a few tracks, and Lee’s own harmonies finish up the songs with an ethereal gloss.