If you read this week's newsletter, you might have noticed that we made a BIG mistake mis-spelling Lara as Laura. Sorry, Lara.

But enough about our mistake, Lara Ewen and the Unstrung Orchestra still manage to make some great music for your listening pleasure. For an elegant description of her album

With a femininely rugged constitution, like cigarette-smelling velvet and a "disillusioned but struggling to remain hopeful" edge to her heady, Stevie Nicks-like vocals, Lara Ewen's style is one that evokes a constant stream of flashbacks from those moments in life that toughen our skin, give us our spine and strengthen our resolve; it's that quality that seems to communicate, "I've been through some crap in my life." Her voice pushes outward at the seams of these songs with an abundance of distilled emotion, producing that coagulated, leathery and roughened quality; at the same time, there is an equal, complementary spirit of vulnerability and surrender, a kind of agreement with the self that life is bound to toss us around, bound to knock us around a bit, but it's no reason to keep the heart from hoping. Her songs are the type that give a certain sweetness to pain, imbue a certain kind of peace found in the tumbles we all take; they are the sorts of songs that elicit a sigh where the heart previously couldn't let go. Ewen's most distinctive gift is this particular ability to tap into the grit and gristle with an approach that ends up being ultimately heartwarming and consoling, even inspiring. With echoes of Patti Griffin and Lucinda Williams, her songs settle nicely into the territory between alt country and singer/songwriter folk, making

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an album to live with, an album that will naturally be digested slowly and contemplatively. This is the kind of album which sticks with you long-term, leaving an emotional imprint in the same league with your first kiss, your first road trip and your first heartbreak."

Check out this video from Lara's CD release party at the soon to be closed Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction in NYC.