Beats and Breaks from the Flower Patch
1998
This springlike collection of sample-based, loop-heavy indie pop tunes received little notice when it first appeared in 1998, but the internet seems to have rediscovered it and given it a second life. In retrospect, it's almost like a blueprint for the more recent Avalanches albums, but more laid back, less ambitious, and with a focused, singular sound. That, or a homespun, American Saint Etienne without the Euro-dance influences and glossy production. Land of the Loops and Volume All*Star mined a similar indietronica niche at the time, but this is far more psychedelic and sun-kissed.
- Paul Simpson
1957
This 1957 album captures the vocalist at her most intimate and melancholy with a song cycle exploring love and loss in uncompromisingly frank terms. Occupying the same harrowing emotional territory staked out by Frank Sinatra on the landmark In the Wee Small Hours, this is music shorn of pretense and artifice.
- Jason Ankeny