Kathy Forste Home Fires CD

Seven 'Plain' tracks are simply Marti's vocal and instrument on all tracks except 9, 'Clark's Tour,' which is a dulcimer solo; and track 5, 'Fair and Tender Maidens,' which is a cappela. Five 'Fancy' cuts have back-up musicians, all acoustic:Tom Levy, bass fiddleTom Wade, Dobro Marianne Tucker, Irish whistle and bones and Tom Tucker, guitar, bouzouki, banjo and mandolin Marti also adds back up guitar DULCIMER songs are all 'Plain:'"Lucid, the Rambler," Marti's tale of two souls meeting and parting, modern folk "Pretty Saro," love song from the Appalachian mountains, and"Clark's Tour," an instrumental medley.

AUTOHARP tunes are 'Plain''Johnny, I Hardly Knew You'& 'Fancy'"Rambler's Woman," and "Piney Hill" for which Marti plays lead on autoharp and double tracks on rhythm guitar with Tom Levy's bass and Tom Wade's dynamite Dobro.

Add to this mix the influences of Van Morrison, the Beatles, Mission of Burma, East River Pipe, Vic Chesnutt, and the Sea and Cake, and you find you're listening to a songwriter as distinctive as any in alternative pop. Swinging between poles of urban angst and alt-country pastoralism, Despard fuses the external and the internal, the physical and the spiritual. From her formative years leading the group Hyaa! to a solo career spanning four albums, she has carved out a unique vantage point. With each record, her perspective resonates more deeply.

Despard's new 'Vessel,' released by U.S. indie label Wampus Multimedia, brings her expressive voice to the fore. Comprised of original material both old and new, it reinvents her traditional indie aesthetic as a sort of unamplified melodicism, the abrupt beauty of a singer left standing after all the Marshall stacks have blown. While Despard's recent solo efforts, 'Push Me Pull You' (1999), 'Alice Despard Group' (2000), and 'Thinning of the Veil' (2003), were rooted firmly in the whir-'n'-blur of indie pop, 'Vessel' relies on the arresting candor of her unadorned voice.

While Despard makes what The Washington Post called "lush, ethereal country rock," the music's heady spiritualism is difficult to classify. Whether accompanied solely by her acoustic guitar, or by inventive collaborators Evan Pollack (drums), Philip D'Ambrosio (bass), and Bobby Birdsong (lap steel), Despard leaves sonic fingerprints not found in the recordings of other artists. From the Velvet-esque "The Well" to the soulfully plaintive "By the Way" to the sweetly sparkling "Hold You Up," 'Vessel' speaks to a rich inner life.