Katy Moffatt
Like many veteran artists, Katy Moffatt has focused on concert performances rather than studio recordings with the music industry in a state of upheaval. She makes a welcome return with Fewer Things, her first studio album since Cowboy Girl, her 2001 western-themed disc.
As the album title implies, Moffatt and producer Andrew Hardin adopt a less-is-more approach, building a sonic framework around their twin acoustic guitars and forsaking drums. Primarily recorded live with minimal overdubs, Fewer Things has an intimate, coffeehouse feel that pushes Moffatt’s expressive voice to the forefront.
She demonstrates a knack for choosing songs that play to her strength as an interpreter. Moffatt turns in a bittersweet take on Nick Lowe’s “What Lack Of Love Has Done” and captures the inevitable heartbreak of Stephen Bruton’s “Getting Over You”. Brian Standefer’s mournful cello echoes the loss of the latter song’s lyrics. “Midwester”, a previously unreleased John Hiatt song from the mid-1970s, is a tale of geographical dislocation that features Hiatt’s trademark wordplay (rhyming cornfield with windshield).
Moffatt co-wrote five of the album’s eleven songs, including three with longtime collaborator Tom Russell. “She’s All He Ever Sees In Me”, which the two of them wrote with Carl Brouse, is a classic country ballad that offers a different twist on a romantic triangle. Hardin’s flamenco touches accentuate the ruefulness of “Still Blue”, a song co-written with Wendy Waldman. Moffatt turns this collection of songs about love gone wrong into an artistic triumph.