Shelley Short: A Cave, A Canoo

In a lot of ways, Shelley Short fits into the female singer-songwriter mold pretty well. She plays a quiet acoustic guitar, and her voice is sweet, hushed, and seemingly confessional. But hold on before you paint her into that corner because A Cave, A Canoo has some subtle surprises and noise play that distinguishes it from the pack. During the verses in “Familiar”, guitars buzz, notes drop in off-key and off-time, and strings squeak in complaint, but the chorus is all shimmering haze. Pedal steel, soaking in reverb, creates a wide space about the sinister, playful hiss of Short’s vocals. “Hard to Tell” rests on the laid-bare buzz of accordion. On “Tap the Old Bell,” a huge space exists between Short’s far-off guitar and her up-front vocals, making for a haunting lullaby. At their core, these may all be contained folk songs, but Short, never quiet, comes at them from the same angle, moving away from a simple guitar/vocals construction and, in the process, creating an album that seeps into the skin, that refuses — despite all its quiet — to let you dismiss it as something you’ve heard before.