Originally posted at MP3.COM: January 7th, 1999

I bought her album Temporary Contentment the other day. Yes. Believe it or not people actually buy these things. Three of the six tracks on her CD are not available for download, and an artist this good I like to support anyway.

She is not only a guitarist, singer, venue performer and songwriter, but she also participates in recording for music in commercials and signature IDs. Don't think that's impressive? Whether you noticed it or not, they got James Earl Jones to say "this is CNN." Advertisers and networks only get the best they can find for their adspots and signons. They pay good money too.

Based in Dallas Texas, Annagrey has a sound rich in folk and country roots, but blossoming with rock and jazz. While not fusion, her sound is like a butterfly celebrating her recent escape from the cocoon.

The DAM Temporary Contentment opens with the first tune I heard from Annagrey, Outside Myself. I picked this up as a download a couple months ago, and it found its way on my first personally crafted CD compilation. I listen to this song a lot driving to and from work.

A simple power pop piece on the surface, the chorus is uniquely catchy. Stretching the words "side my self" when the rest of the song is more fast paced in the lyrics somehow makes a statement quite potent and powerful. It's the perfect blastoff point for the rest of the album, like a rocket taking off from the pad, and the rest of the album is sorta like floating around in space taking in the sights.

California is a very good example of Annagrey's tongue in cheek sense of humor. The words speak of a woman contemplating the banality and boredom in her present relationship. The discomfort in how they've gotten comfortable.

Some years ago, an Austin band called the New Bohemians broke out of the regional scene and made it professionally for awhile. Last I heard, the lead singer of that band married Paul Simon. Not too shabby. Annagrey has some similarities to the early sound of the New Bohemians, and the raw emotion of Edie Brickell. However, What Brickell lacked in intensity and conviction, Annagrey exels at.

I would be surprised to hear Annagrey ever sing words like, "drown me in the shallow water before I get too deep." She doesn't have to say it. You can hear it. If she gets deep, she'll get deep. She won't apologize for it. You can hear that quality evident in her love ballad and title track for this CD, Temporary Contentment.

Again we hear the questions in her mind and heart about how boring it could be to be comfortable, but such things are fleeting. The only constant is change.

Oh think of better days

But don't look back too long

Touch my skin, I'll kiss your mouth

Even though we won't work everything out

The lyrics are lush and intimate here. And the emotion of her delivery is like children frolicking one moment, and an old lady setting the table for tea the next. She seems to run the gamut of life experiences with practically every song.

You won't find Learn online at her website. I see this one from the opposite side of the picture. The lyrics talk of how the signals a man gives are contrary to what he says sometimes. How he may say he loves you, but he doesn't act like it. Or, in hindsight the woman looks back on a relationship spanning months or years, and realizes with coldness in her heart that he never actually said he loved her. He never used the words. That they shared so much time together but now he's gone, and it all makes sense and yet.. somehow.. Well such a realization makes one see, you gotta lot to learn.

Again, the same delicate use of emotion and life experience is revealed here. There are times when someone looks at a DAM sold here at mp3c, sees that it contains some extra tracks, and wonders if it's worth it to buy the DAM just to get those extra tracks that you haven't heard. In this case, yes it is. Not just for Learn, but also for Old. I love this one. Check these lyrics.

I got a wish and

It's nothing you would guess

And I don't care

If you don't understand.

I kinda miss my

Childhood innocence, and

It seems the only way to grow is old.

The first time I caught that last phrase it gave me chills, cuz she's right. In fact I'm surprised no one else has ever used that phrase before. Has anyone? I can't recall ever hearing it in a song before. This is rare today. A simple phrase or concept so familiar, and yet so fresh and new.

She's all the things I described above, and on top of that she's a poet, in a way that few other artists can achieve. Her use of words is so conversational in tone within her music, but also naturally fits into the music seamlessly like a contour pillow. She makes it looks sooo easy.

She finishes up the album with Passenger Side Seat which is also available at her artist page. I could go on and on about this one, but I'll just point out this: since the first time I heard this song it's been bothering me. Where else have I heard that? Nowhere of course. It IS an original, but there's one snippet of the song which echoes back to another artist I admire and to hear it here seemed so unconventional and out of place.

Annagrey hits the long notes in the chorus with this build and sweeping motion similar to how kd lang sings Constant Craving. Others have compared Annagrey to practically every female artist of the 20th century, from Janis Joplin to Sheryl Crow. Such comparisons are a dime a dozen for critics like myself. *smirk* No really! I mean it's nice to be able to compare an artist to something the reader might be familiar with.

But to hear the distant yearning and the mysterious simultaneous emotional detachment and attachment evident in kd lang's work here, to hear Annagrey echo something that on a very left of center fashion connects with me on a deep and personal level, well perhaps this is one of those "you had to have been there moments" but it chilled me to the core when I finally saw where that was coming from. Like an electric spark of recognition.

I don't care how far you take me Annagrey, so long as I'm in the car the next time you make an album.

Thanks for reading.