Cassandra Jenkins

★★★★

An Overview On Phenomenal Nature BA DA BING.

CD/DL/LP

Perennial New York sidekick fronts a jazz-soulful beauty. Jenkins is best known as a guitarist in Eleanor Friedberger and Craig Finn’s bands, despite her own 2017 debut Play Till You Win, which subtly melted pop into country soul, reminiscent of Jenny Lewis. That album, however, is a sketch compared to the fleshed-out contours of An

Overview…, overseen by Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman. Jenkins’ understated croon, like a downbeat Blossom Dearie, is closer-miked than before, and there’s a new injection of jazz – the smooth, Steely Dan variety. New Bikini spirals into piano-bar ambience; the title track’s spoken word/sax brew sounds like rain in city streets; seven-minute finale Rambling is even more impressionistic – children’s voices, birdsong, woodwind drift. Lasting only an economic 33 minutes; on this form, she could pull off a double album.