Continuing on the winning streak started with 2001's excellent Kingo a Wild One,
Steve Almaas teams up with girlfriend
Ali Smith (a noted photographer who used to be the bassist in the psychobilly
Speedball Baby) to record a small-scale and utterly charming collection of largely acoustic, country-tinged pop tunes. The album kicks off with a delightful cover of
the Fleetwoods' soft pop classic "Come Softly to Me" -- with
Smith's dreamily sweet double-tracked lead set perfectly against
Almaas' twangy take on Gary Troxell's "dom dom, domby-doo-wah" part -- and continues through a 12-track set of originals and covers, split equally into thirds: duets,
Smith leads, and
Almaas leads.
Smith's gentle coo and
Almaas' Minnesota-meets-Memphis inflections rub together uneasily at times, which gives their harmonies a little frisson akin to that of
the Handsome Family, without the morbidity.
Almaas plays the lion's share of instruments, with ex-
Holly & the Italians bassist Mark Sidgwick and
Speedball Baby's former drummer, Andy Action, completing the trio; the arrangements are folksy and rough-edged, but never barebones. (Producer
Mitch Easter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Graboff pitch in as well.) Highlights include sensitive covers of
the dB's' "Moving in Your Sleep" and
Jack Logan's "Shrunken Head," plus a rollicking version of the traditional folk song "Baby out of Jail" that sounds rather like
Fairport Convention's more electric moments, not to mention a fab
Smith-sung version of "Mistake," a song
Almaas wrote back in the
Beat Rodeo days. Unpretentious but captivating,
Steve Almaas & Ali Smith is a welcome addition to
Almaas' solo records. ~ Stewart Mason