After a ten year plus absence, Soccer Committee's Mariska Baars is now back to something like her prolific best with Eye, her third record in four years and, for these ears at least, certainly her most potent. Baars has frequently shown herself to be highly adept at artful intimacy, her songwriting a compelling mix of environmental sound and emotionally redolent folk song that bears fond comparison with Chan Marshall and Liz Harris. On this latest eight song collection, she appears to have refined that approach to its most convincing form yet, penning the kind of close-mic'd ambient chamber song that feels equally suited to cathedral atriums as it does the dusty back rooms of a domestic setting. The voice is, as ever, the defining star, confident but never showy, blessed with an ethereal quality that would have little trouble in either imparting the grace of the divine or singing you to sleep. Perhaps you might be in need of both? If so, line up Eye and earn your deserved release.
FFO: Cat Power, Grouper, Joanne Robertson, Maxine Funke, Annelies Monsere
