Dames Rocket by Kate Schrock

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The first salient feature of her remarkableness is Kate's voice itself -- this, no one ever compares to anyone else's among her comtemporaries (the Tori's and Sarah's and such) Apart from its distinctive timber, it seems to speak experience effortlessly, rather than as skillfully-won conjuring of art.

Yet the artifice is there, though it forms a second salient feature of her songs: She constructs music for her voice that seems to work with its strengths of range, inflection, and phrasing -- that is, music that doesn't try to grandstand the performer in the listener's ears, satisfying them with musical hooks and virtuosity for their own game.

The voice seems, as a result, almost unmediated by song, as if speaking naturally to you as much as singing for you.

And a third salient feature is a shrewd sense of how to set this performing voice among instrumental arrangements that are full enough and moving, but don't overpower or distract.

Kate's first album, "Refuge", was spare and revealed a distinctive voice both individually and lyrically.

But the second, "Shunyata", and no this third, "Dames Rocket", reach for and find a magical balance -- a sound fuller in instrumentation and yet one that inexplicably compels the listener to hear the voice even more clearly, more closely.

It's almost uncanny -- all of this coupled with intelligent lyrics that often strikingly mine the emotional conversation between confessional "I"'s and listening "you"'s -- mention should be made too of the superbly supportive musicians in Kate's band, who seem fully in tune with what she wants and needs, and the extraordinary quality of her music's recording.

Believe this, audiophile's especially: There is no consistently better recoded sound in popular music, mainstream or indie / and here the quality simply enhances the sense of presence.

When you listen, Kate Schrock is in the room with you, unavoidably, and you'd better pay attention.

So - what more can one say about Kate Schrock's music for the ears of a novice? In her song from this album, "the Wait", Kate observes: "I'm gonna find my heart / with a pianter's brush and a writer's pen / find the pieces that got blown apart / I trace the steps of the places I've been"..In a way, this is what most of her powerful music grapples with, though the search can disclose pieces of promise and even joy as well.

And in a way, this lyrical fragment suggests the impression made by all these salient qualities, acting in concert -- of music almost naturally found, just right, as well as deliberately made.

There's an old esthetic metaphor, less often heard than the one about the artist being a conduit for her art rather than a creator -- and it says that a sculpter "finds the sculpture inside the stone".

At this point of her small-in-size, low-in-profile output, Kate Schrock seems to have done the same feat with her music.

And the best thing that you can do would be to reach out and discover the work that she's done.

I promise you: if Kate were never to release another album, we can already witness a unique and quiet greatness.

Now go listen up! ( - JClark)

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