Wilson is superb at making standard pop, blues and jazz songs her own. Her brilliant reinvention of Robert Johnson songs on Blue Light ’Til Dawn is just one case in point. She didn’t want to do the same thing over, and she stakes out new territory here. While her sensibility is definitely the same, the arrangements—samples, looped tracks and Marc Ribot’s out-there guitar work—are denser, layered with more texture. Her smoky atmospheric vocals simmer throughout, whether on originals like “Go to Mexico,” Willie Dixon’s “I Want to Be Loved,” the traditional “Red River Valley,” or the quivering and quaking lament of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Easy Rider.” No label fits easily, and that’s a good thing.
Thunderbird
