ROOTS

Latest releases reviewed

Stripping Cane Signature

Unfinished business (part 1): 2004 may be a distant memory for some but I'm still happily immersed in two albums that came out towards the end of the year and somehow got lost in the rush. Jeffrey Foucault is a singer/songwriter from Wisconsin whose style is redolent of Kelly Joe Phelps. There is a similar mixture of folk blues, but Foucault's touch is lighter though no less interesting. His songs, carried along by his husky vocals, sweet picking and the sensitive production of David Goodrich, convey an aloneness and yet a yearning for home and happiness. They are songs rich in melody and cloaked in a quality of descriptive detail rarely found. This is a serious talent and one that should be heard when he plays here in early March.

www.jeffreyfoucault.com Joe Breen

Vultures Await  Munich Records

Unfinished business (part 2): This album has kind of pulled at me for a while. There always seemed to be something ahead of it for review, but somehow it turned up repeatedly, like a shaggy dog, waiting for approval. And truly it is a shaggy dog of a record. Will Johnson, whether solo or operating in his bands, South San Gabriel or Centro-matic, has a very individual voice, indie bedroom pop meets alt country slacker. But amid the sound of the laid-back, almost horizontal, rhythm section and his ghostly piano, there lurks an array of memorable lyrical tunes, not least the opening Neil Young-ish Just To Know What You've Been Dreaming or the seductive melody of Sleep A While. It is a little shambolic, but endearingly so.

www.munichrecords.com Joe Breen