Scatter Ways Album

Scatter Ways is the debut solo album from Chicago-based musician Kathleen Baird, who is also a member of the Comus-channeling freak-folk outfit, Spires that in the Sunset Rise. Traveling Bell replaces Spires' hysterical ecstasy with a slower, slyer, subtler tone. Kathleen's voice is deep, sleepy and Nico-esque, her instrumentation loose and imaginative. Like if Brigitte Fontaine fronted Current 93. Her lush and exotic arrangements include bells, mbira, guitars, and other plectra, flutes, and synthesizers, all orchestrated to outline her careful, but never fussy, songcraft. (-via SecretEye.org)