Basia Bulat – Oh, My Darling

If there were a futures market in upstart artists, Basia Bulat would be rated a buy — if not for what she’s managed to produce so far in her short career, then for what the 24-year-old might yet yield with time and seasoning. The debut album by the Toronto native and resident of London, Ontario, is a gossamer folk collection mixing elegant folk melodies with rustic instrumentation (autoharp, ukulele) and some old-world rhythms (she may single-handedly resurrect the staccato handclap) in a manner that is always pleasant, often novel, but not always revelatory.

Bulat’s voice is a moving target. She displays an anachronistic pop trill on “Birds Of Paradise” and “La-Da-Da”, then a huskier croon on “A Secret” and the anthemic gallop “In The Night”. The vocal shape-shifting might be attributed to the vocal nodes (since cured) Bulat acquired while the making of the record, but the variety and variation in her voice enhances the record’s impact.

It’s her pen, not her voice, that holds Oh, My Darling short of greatness. The baroquely-arranged, dramatic “I Was A Daughter” (“We swam in the rivers/We sigh with the birds/Gave away our hearts before we knew what they were”) sets a high bar that none of the other dozen songs quite matches. But these are early days, and this is a formative recording from a beguiling new artist who warrants anticipation for whatever comes next.