Like contemporaries Kimya Dawson and Mirah, Laura Barrett writes folk songs that strive more for agelessness than timelessness: whimsical lyrics abound, even amidst her most thematically heavy songs, and her penchant for twee melodies and instruments that go "plink" lend her music a juvenile sense of fascination. Songs a six-year-old could love.

Though a classically trained pianist, Barrett scales down her sound on Earth Sciences; way down, in fact, to just voice and kalimba - the African thumb piano. Though presumably not a classically trained THUMB pianist, Barrett coaxes a lot of character and range from the simple instrument across this EP's six humorously-titled tracks, creating hypnotic, complex figures that are at once melodic and rhythmic.

Home Page

MySpace

Paper Bag Records