Sera Cahoone

Perhaps it was growing up as daughter of a Rocky Mountain dynamite salesman that first got a then 12-year-old Sera Cahoone interested in using small sticks to smash things up. But her drumming career, playing for Band of Horses and the now defunct Carissa’s Weird, eventually became full-blown songwriting as Cahoone turned to the acoustic guitar and song sheets she’d been working on for 15 years. The Seattle-based songstress follows the resulting self-released, self-titled 2006 debut with Only as the Day is Long. A usual choice for label Sub Pop in its fiercely traditional Americana sound, it is still far from ordinary, melding Cahoone’s gorgeous, Neko-like, breathy vocals with sure-footed, soulful arrangements. With names like "Baker Lane,” "Shitty Hotel” and "Happy When I’m Gone,” you can be sure of what to expect from this ten-song collection. But expectations are not disappointed. A sad, dusky desert highway of an album consumed with modesty and restraint.