Umm ... Drop

MUSIC

By Doug Wallen

Add Comment | Comments: 1 | Posted Apr. 16, 2008

Photo by Michael Persico

D.C.-born and Maryland-raised Alexandra Day has a musical resume that includes a classical voice degree, three years singing in a wedding band, more than a decade of piano lessons, and a continual flirtation with jazz. Each informs her current work as a piano-playing singer/songwriter, all wafting like smoke through her new album No Castles No Moats.

The jazz influence can be heard in the album's opening seconds, in the curt, insistent repetition of piano and percussion. Day's lyrics rely on repetition just as much, returning to a phrase or theme over and over, as if examining it from different angles. Her voice, meanwhile, is a sultry yet versatile thing, hinting at Fiona Apple and Jolie Holland but usually striking off on its own.

She's admirably moody as songwriters go, pairing a cello-soaked weeper like "Under the Bridge" with the spunky country of "Tofu Song," a two-minute ode to barbecuing fake meat. Backed by a revolving cast of musicians, other songs touch on classical or R&B ("I Want You to Be My Love" has both), and "Walls" is a leering set piece that's ideal for Day's emotional assaying.

Day has a penchant for summoning bygone times, and not just with her mastery of torch songs and baroque flourishes. She sings of "a cloud of yellowed memories" in the same breath as she commands "leave those dinosaur bones alone," and she mentions a phrase you don't hear much these days--"shanty towns"--in both "You Won't Be the Fool" and the closing "I've Been Wrong Before."

The latter is perhaps her most ambitious song, a six-minute opus that begins in a whisper and gradually climbs to a heavenly swoon in its final minute as Day offers, "Maybe we'll start anew." Whether she's addressing herself or someone else is anyone's guess.

Sun., April 20, 8pm. $8. With Papertrees, Monica McIntyre + Keshia Hutchins. North Star, 27th and Poplar sts. 215.787.0488. www.northstarrocks.com