Lucy Kaplansky

A psychologist in another life, Chicagoan Kaplansky plants herself firmly on the stage, accompanied by a guitar, a mic-stand and a sharp line in wry, deprecating humour. She rips through a selection of contemporary folk songs (her own and others) with alacrity and purpose, occasionally stopping to wonder aloud at both the absurdity and the deathly seriousness of life, the universe and everything else.

Like any contemporary folk singer worth their sack of salt, Kaplansky dissects her topics like an experienced chef dicing carrots. Slivers of hard-earned life and the odd quirk of fate litter her songs, but they're not the wordy debris of lesser songwriters. Rather they are a brief litany of fundamental truths gathered up in the arms of a person who has probably seen many a personal disaster.

All of this is put across in a personal yet accessible manner by Kaplansky, her songs for the most part superb examples of the art of falling apart, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and starting all over again. In a word? Spirited.