Kat Terran - Lion and Blue

Sometimes, I get a CD to review and I am knocked to my knees by the way that a musician, artist, or band will lay themselves out in the open for public consumption. Brutal honesty can make you small, or, in Kat Terran's case, it seems to make her bigger. Her earnest wobble of a voice gets bigger as Lion and Blue moves on, and her minstrel-ish music gets more aggressive and jagged behind her, to the point where she gargles: "I'm captive in my home" ("Boa Constrictor") and you realize this is more of a captivation inside the mind, and this music is the only honest outlet the speaker has. Powerful and vulnerable, accessing nature and bleeding folk-ish themes of self discovery and intimate pain, Lion and Blue is rich in story and far from delicate in content. Which is why Ms. Terran needs a better producer or at least a better sound room to record in. Reguardless of if I was in my car, in my room, or listening to Lion and Blue, I was put off by the lo-fi sound. Maybe I'm spoiled by the big major-label slick production, but this is just too low, too stripped. The bare-bones of the music and Terran's voices coupled with the shoddy production beget a 2nd-stage Lilith Festival song, when I think that Terran is more than that. And while Terran's haunting wail scales the lyric "My keeper's out tonight/ if you see her/ run " backed by Terran's brother's gorgeous strings (very cool in "The Sea"), the sound is somewhat lost on the muddy production. Very talented, very in need of some extra finances so this wonderful songstress can get into a decent studio. [www.katterran.com]