The Jessamine County Book of the Living

Brooklyn resident and Kentucky native Matt Bauer looks back at his childhood home on his second album, The Jessamine County Book of the Living. "The Living" mostly seem to be animals, as Bauer describes and sings from the point of view of mockingbirds, tics, wolves, and deer, to cite only references in song titles. The slow, considered musical arrangements are based on Bauer's own banjo or guitar picking, but they expand to include a ten-piece chamber orchestra of strings and horns. This is a vaguely rural species of art song in the music and the esoteric lyrics, its sophistication belied only by the weak link in the music, which is Bauer's own voice. He sings in a raspy tenor, employing a breathy vibrato, as if he couldn't quite gasp enough air to make it to the end of the phrases. He is wise to employ Jolie Holland as a harmony singer and duet partner for most of the disc, but the singing still falls short of the album's musical ambitions.