Starlight Hotel

Zoe Muth has been called Seattle's answer to Emmylou Harris, Kitty Wells or Iris Dement, depending on who you believe. The comparisons are apt on several, but not all, accounts. There's that perfect, lilting dip in the voice where you expect it to be; there's the alluring combination of youthful optimism and wry experience; but there's also a special crispness to the diction and sharpness in the projection that points away from Appalachia and towards the left side of the Rockies. In Starlight Hotel, the follow-up to her roundly praised debut release, Never Be Fooled Again, Muth burnishes her standing alongside Rachel Harrington and Neko Case (among others), as one of the brightest stars to have emerged from the alt-country scene in the Pacific Northwest. Ably supported by the Lost High Rollers – Ethan Lawton (mandolin), Mike McDermott (bass), Greg Nies (drums) and Dave Harmonson (pedal steel and electric guitars) – these ten original compositions roam from laidback ramble and honky-tonk shuffle to full-blown hootenanny – with a touch of Mexican marching band thrown in, for no discernible reason other than to trigger a ‘Ring of Fire’ association. The magical thing is, it all works.

As a youth, Muth was deeply affected by the field recordings of Alan Lomax and Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. Her most keenly evocative songs, such as ‘New Mexico’, an achingly blue lament about lost love and shattered dreams, plumb the depths of the mythical American psyche with a seasoned edginess that belies the songwriter's youth and experience.