It’s hard to think of a more apt act for Blue Note’s Metro Blue imprint, or an artist more metro, than Keren Ann, a Parisian of baffling multinational extraction. After releasing two albums in French and one in English (last year’s lovely Not Going Anywhere), Keren Ann recorded Nolita half in New York and half in Paris, splitting the language difference accordingly.
She nods to the chanson tradition, and to folky forebears from Joni Mitchell to Suzanne Vega, but her evasive self-possession keeps her at a teasing distance from both her influences and her audience. It’s sometimes too much of a distance — the line between mysterious and banal might be thinner than she thinks — but on the whole, she merits the close attention she demands.
Nolita, maybe by virtue of its bifurcated genesis, isn’t as complete an album as Not Going Anywhere. A few songs feel tentative, and the spoken-word narrative on the closing number is interesting only once. On the other hand, tenderly wrought melodies and smoky arrangements, along with Keren Ann’s half-murmured purr, make songs such as “Que N’ai-Je?”, “Roses And Hips” and the seven-minute title track linger like a long afternoon.
The instrumentation is a little broader than the fingerpicked guitars of Not Going Anywhere, incorporating string sections, moaning harmonicas and occasional electronic effects. But the dominant presence is always Keren Ann herself, flirting (but not with you), promising (to someone else), and shooting sideways glances at something just over your shoulder.