Liz Durrett once said, jokingly no doubt, that during a rough patch in her teens, her uncle and music mentor Vic Chesnutt gave her a guitar and told her to “write mean songs about her parents.” Husk, a compilation of songs Durrett composed and recorded during her adolescence (between 1993 and 1996), shows she ignored that particular advice; nevertheless, Chesnutt’s musical influence looms large.
As the preponderance of one-word titles implies, this impressive debut is a spartan affair filled with rickety, minimalist arrangements and molasses-drip tempos. Accompanied by Chesnutt, his wife Tina, and fellow Athens, Georgia, resident Rob Veal, Durrett offers up ghostly, soundscape-like compositions that emit a warm, intimate glow.
Blessed with a willowy voice (think a more somnolent version of Cat Power’s Chan Marshall), Durrett brings to mind the image of a young but wise teen secluded in her room, confiding secrets to her dolls. And that’s an altogether good thing, a hand-in-glove fit for this material.
High points include “Lull”, a gauzy, melodic country ballad boosted by Chesnutt’s fragile backing drawl; “Slip”, which sounds like the sort of haunting lament Michael Stipe might write if he were suddenly without his R.E.M. mates; and “Vine”, a slo-core beauty that could’ve fit nicely onto the soundtrack for David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.
