Midnight, sapphire, cerulean, teal

Image: Franziska von Stenglin

Midnight Blues (live at Planet Claire) - Liz Green
Midnight Blues - Liz Green

Thanks to Blogotheque for reminding me (a month ago, things are on a 30-day delay round here) about Liz Green, a Northern English lass with the haunted timbre and cadence of a lost, nameless American Southern blues singer (who scrubbed floors and rubbed her fingers raw by day, lost herself on a tiny stage by night and died at 33 of TB, as those stories go). A British girl with a well-deep, well-dark voice that ripples and ripples and ripples. The first track is live-recorded in Paris; the second is a studio recording. Often -- mostly -- musicians efficiently reproduce their recordings on the road. Not the sonics, the emotional tenor, the meaning to the singer, the sung-about, the sung-to. But these are two utterly different songs. I'm sure you can guess which I prefer.

From Bad Medicine/French Singer (Amazon), Myspace


See My Love - Headless Heroes
See My Love (Song for Greg) - Gentle Soul

Alela Diane and a crew of Nevada City, CA (Newsom country) musicians have made the covers record I wish Vetiver had earlier this year: eccentric, eclectic, electric, ringing with reverb, good cheer and imagination. The original "See My Love" was performed by Gentle Soul -- an obscurish hippie folk duo -- soft, whispery, sideways. But Diane sings it strong and melodramatic against surging and cresting orchestral waves (I never realized she had such powerhouse pipes) like it's a certain girl-group declaration of destiny, romance, true love and affirmation of faith in the power of songs to communicate those things unambiguously.

From The Silence of Love (Amazon), Myspace