Victoria Williams

Louisiana-born songwriter Victoria Williams may share an audience with the alt-country
likes of Wilco and the Jayhawks, but she remains a true outsider artist with an
uncategorizable musical vision. Musings of a Creekdipper, Williams' first studio LP since
1994's superb Loose, showcases her singular voice (a twangy soprano equivalent of Neil
Young's high tenor), eclectic approach (touches of folk, country, jazz and Tin P... More >

There's eccentric and then there's loopy, and this fragile, well-named follow-up is loopy; Loose could be a Peter Asher record by comparison. Williams ruminates around with trap washes and a tentative piano fanfare before delivering a discursive, indirect opener, and is moved to recollect the entrancing "Kashmir's Corn" before settling into more declarative material, as in: "I'd like to take this time to complain about the train!" Give it time and you could fall hard. I swear, bucolic dreamers aren't my cup of branch water either. (Grade: A-)