On her stunning sophomore album, Central Reservation, Beth Orton slips free of the electronic textures that colored her acclaimed 1996 debut, Trailer Park, stripping her music down to its raw essentials to produce a work of stark simplicity and rare poignancy. With the exception of a pair of Ben Watt-produced tracks ("Stars All Seem to Weep" and a remix of the title cut), Central Reservation rejects synthetic sounds and beats altogether in favor of an organic atmosphere somewhere between ...   [ read more ]

CD $11.38

L.A.-based rock singer Beth Hart released Screamin' for My Supper in 1999, three years after her debut, Immortal. Producing herself, with help from longtime collaborator Tal Herzberg, and playing piano, keyboards, and arranging string sections, Screamin' for My Supper is a mature, fully realized sounding record. She kicks things off with "Just a Little Hole," a mid-tempo, smoldering cut with organ that gives it a blues/gospel feel. Hart's slightly raspy vocals compliment things with a ...   [ read more ]

CD $13.26

Welcome to the sounds and poetry of recovery and redemption. On Beth Hart's third album in six years, the singer/songwriter has taken her already lean, rootsy approach to writing, scaled it back to skillfully reflect what is essential in a song, and then, as is her trademark, poured the very grain of her being into each performance. On Leave the Light On, Hart speaks through unapologetically classic, mainstream rock music so gritty, edgy, and true (informed by the gospels according to {$the ...   [ read more ]

CD $12.33