Album Review of
The Littlest Prisoner

Written by Duane Verh
July 18, 2014 - 12:00am EDT
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Ms. Scheinman here fleshes out intimate lyrical portraits and tableaux, disarming in their directness and increasingly charming with each return listening.  Underlining the highly personal nature of her lyrics is their very natural sounding, almost conversational character.  She periodically spells these scenes with a sprinkling of all-too-brief flashes of her exquisite fiddle work.  Instrumental backup, laced with guitarist Bill Frisell's strategic note drops, is appealingly sparse and is particularly dream-like on the leadoff track, “Brother” and the markedly moody closer, “Sacrifice”.  This is likely one of the year’s freshest.