Fireproof by Dawn Landes

Dawn Landes' second album shows that while she's been characterized as a folk artist, it might be more appropriate to say she has her own quietly varied spin on a number of styles, using her talents as a studio engineer to create something that has a tense, moody feeling that wouldn't surprise listeners of performers ranging from Suzanne Vega to Alison Krauss (or, for that matter, producers like Jon Brion and T Bone Burnett). Backed by a variety of able performers, most notably Ray Rizzo on "drums, vocals, chaos," Landes plays everything from guitars to Optigans to bells as well as sings, but what's interesting is how relatively uncluttered Fireproof sounds — there's always a sense of space that the music fills but doesn't dominate, matched by the gentle swath of echo she adds to her voice. Sometimes the production touches are absolutely perfect in their spot-on precision — consider how the cymbal splashes and brisk guitar feed off each other on the reinterpretation of the standard "I Don't Need No Man," or how the combination of overdubbed backing vocals and thumb piano on "Private Little Hell" creates an atmosphere at once pretty and strangely queasy. For all the air of hyperactivity in some of the arrangements, Landes can just as easily aim for the relatively straightforward — there's the harmonica-tinged high and lonesome lope of "I'm in Love with the Night," as beautiful a piece of smooth '70s country-rock as Mojave 3 were never quite able to capture after their first album, as well as the lovely "Twilight," which rivals Beth Orton for its Dusty Springfield-derived country beauty. But if Orton has recorded anything as jaw-droppingly twisted as the jaunty organ then suddenly slashing guitar-backed "Picture Show"'s portrait of fame and beauty images as corrosion, it's yet to surface. (Tip of the hat as well to the unlisted cover of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" at the end of the disc, featuring just Landes and acoustic guitar. It's a lovely reinterpretation that sounds even better in her hands.)

Tracklist

1.	Bodyguard	3:55

2.	I Don't Need No Man	3:07

3.	Tired of This Life	3:04

4.	Twilight	3:23

5.	Private Little Hell	2:46

6.	Picture Show	3:13

7.	Kids in a Play	3:27

8.	Toy Piano	1:33

9.	Dig Me a Hole	3:11

10.	I'm in Love with the Night	3:40

11.	Goodnight Lover	2:46

12.	You Alone	6:52

13.	Won't Back Down	2:27

Credits

released January 21, 2008

PLAYERS
dawn landes.............guitars, organs, optigons, loops, vocals, banjos, thumb & toy pianos, synths, bells
ray rizzo.....................drums,vocals, chaos
jon flaugher...............basses
bob hoffnar................pedal steel
gary maurer...............mandolin, electric guitar
steve curtis.................guitars, banjo
jon hull........................harmonica
joe rogers...................electric guitar

RECORDED BY
dawn landes, adam lasus, gary maurer

RECORDED AT
Fireproof Studios, Stratosphere Sound, Dubway & dawns music room

INSPIRED BY
adam rapp, Hem, danica novgorodoff, cindi wright smith, larry landes, vera wright, adam lasus, linda cohen, The King of France, dave koplan, geoff sherr, britt myers, erin lennox, charles bukowski, clifford lane and his FunMachine, christophe jube, everyone working in the saltmines, gillian welsh, woody guthrie, tom petty, emmett tinley, john schumann, the clerk at the watch store on 1st ave, jim and juna drougas, car trouble in PA, dreams, paris, jason glasser, Nervous Cabaret, old soul

"Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty

License