There are a limited number of colours available on the singer-plus-acoustic-guitar colour wheel. Fortunately, Laura Musgrave only explores the interesting ones. Her work is largely minor key stuff -- heavy lyrical content and lo-fi, with a demo aesthetic. She mostly limits the palette to her voice and acoustic guitar. Yeah, we've heard all of this before, but there's something in Musgrave's work that isn't always present in the genre: honesty. These songs feel like journal entries -- heartfelt stuff that she's perhaps a little embarrassed to share with listeners, though she's happy to get it all off of her soul. I can imagine her performing these works with her eyes closed, or facing the wall as she recites these memories at a local café.

It's rare these days to find someone who isn't dressing up otherwise heavy emotions with weird sounds or other gimmicks. Sparking is about as exposed and cliché-free an album as you'll find in this genre, and I hope that as Musgrave's music matures, she'll retain the innocence she demonstrates here.

  -- Dave Madden

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