Sea of Bees

Songs for the Ravens Heavenly***

There's charm aplenty on the debut album from California singer and multi-instrumentalist Julie Ann Baenziger. Her warm, engaging sing-song warble will be the first thing to strike you – indeed, some may find her voice to be a turn-off and stop listening. Baenziger's songwriting ability is pretty advanced, and she's adept at turning out shy, cute tunes coated in hazy, country-ish, folk-pop, mellow textures ( Skinnybone,the lovely Won't Be Long). But she also throws out tunes with more straight-ahead classic indie contours, such as Sidepain, which is a 1990s throwback if ever you heard one. Baenziger's instrumental muscles are well developed, each tune neatly packaged with dabs of slide guitar, marimba or glockenspiel. This is a fine introduction to an artist who will definitely be sticking around for a while longer. See seaofbees.com

Download tracks: Skinnybone, Sidepain