Hooked on pop

Like the best of Colvin's work, Stranger to This Land offered catchy, country-inflected, pop-folk arrangements with a taste of the Beatles and Motown. The songs were accessible stories about friends, dates, places, and relationships. There was an Eagles cover, a song about Mary Tyler Moore, and just the occasional simple metaphor carefully inserted to please those who like "poetic" lyrics.

Most striking about Stranger, however, were the Colvinesque vocals. "I'm definitely aware of it," she says over the phone. "Our vocal range is extremely similar, and the kind of music that we like is obviously the same. Shawn was a big influence, but I've actually stopped listening to her. If I'm naturally in the place where I sound like her already, then I don't want to absorb anything else."

There could be worse things than sounding just like Colvin, and it didn't stop Kessler from garnering widespread acclaim, radio airplay, and four Boston Music Award nominations. Plus the award for Outstanding Debut Acoustic Album, the 1995 Kerrville New Folk Award, and the Female Acoustic Artist of the Year Award from the National Academy of Songwriters.

All of this for an album that wasn't even originally intended for public distribution. Recorded live at Cambridge's Kendall Café, Stranger was supposed to be a demo. It wound up being released by the burgeoning Medfield label Eastern Front, which is making waves with other new-folk acts including Kevin Connolly, Peter Mulvey, and Greg Greenway. Although Kessler was grateful for the exposure, she remains somewhat ambivalent about it. She says that given the recording's limitations, "it went further than we had planned."

As a result, Notion might come as a shock to some listeners. Produced by Peter Gabriel drummer Jerry Marotta, it is much more varied and experimental. If Stranger evoked an upbeat Shawn Colvin, the new one -- with its processed vocals and occasional industrial-folk touches -- is bound to remind some of Suzanne Vega's more recent work with producer Mitchell Froom. Stranger was bright and cheery; Notion is more intimate and edgy, in both its music and its lyrics. "That Hurricane," propelled by Tony Levin's funky bass hinting at Police-like pop reggae, surveys the damage of a broken, stormy love affair. (Levin is another versatile Gabriel bandmate.) The title track introduces the album's industrial textures underneath a paranoid plea for privacy: "I'll give you an inkling/Spare you a notion/Nothing more/You get what you pay for."

Continuing in that vein, "Carolina" is a gothic, Conradian trip through the South, "Jane's Last Day" takes a look at a planned suicide, and "Me" is a full-throttle, flawlessly executed send-up of alternative-rock poseurs. In all, a far cry from "There's nothing better than being happy with you" or "Let's take a ride in the country baby/Take a roll in the hay," to offer just two typical lines from Stranger. Kessler hasn't stopped churning out her pop hooks, however. Lines like "You get what you pay for" and "If a tree falls and you don't hear it" work in concert with bouncing melodies in choruses that don't resolve so much as teeter on the brink. The better to drop you back into the verses.

"I'm a total sucker for pop," confesses Kessler. "I grew up listening to classic FM rock and also AM radio, and I love Crowded House and Squeeze." No kidding.

In the end, though, it's not the hooks, the Froom-like production, or even the songs that make this album one of the best by any contemporary singer/songwriter in years. What puts her over the top is her voice, a smoothly subtle and sometimes jazzy, versatile soprano full of surprises -- whether it's the aggression of "Carolina," the jaded weariness of "Me," or the heartrending vulnerability of "The Date." They prove that Barbara Kessler can outsing just about anyone on the contemporary folk-pop scene.

Barbara Kessler will premiere songs from Notion at her CD-release party at Mama Kin this Sunday, April 14, when she will be joined by Jerry Marotta, Marc Schulman, and Jennifer Kimball, among others. Peter Mulvey will open the show.