*** Bernice Lewis

ISLE OF SPIRIT

(Sanctuary/Blue Bhikku)

Kicking off with "Soon As It Stops Raining" -- an upbeat, good-natured poke at a new-age brand of procrastination -- Bernice Lewis's Isle of Spirit, her best album to date, takes you on a journey of spiritual and material struggle, stepping down for some sensual and sassy Western swing ("Red Cowboy Boots"), some Native American-flavored pantheism ("When the Rivers Had No Names"), and an ambitious piece of dramatic irony ("Ways To Survive") in which a young narrator's innocence contrasts starkly with the fate that awaits her on the eve of a Nazi "deportation." Producer/multi-instrumental wiz Adam Rothberg (Dar Williams) builds comfortable settings for the Berkshire singer/songwriter's folk-based compositions, painting colors with accordion, flute, fiddle, bass, piano, and guitars. The album's greatest revelation, however, may be found on its least typical number, "Even the Sky," a jazz-standard-type original with delicately sympathetic piano accompaniment by Tom McClung -- on which Lewis's resonant, evocative vocals suggest she may have found a whole new territory to explore: neo Hoagy Carmichael.

-- Seth Rogovoy

(Bernice Lewis opens for Rory Block at the Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley this Saturday, January 18.)