The title of Jesca Hoop’s debut album, Kismet, could easily refer to the twists of fate that led to its existence. Certainly it seems like destiny that Hoop would land a five-year tenure as nanny to the children of Tom Waits, whose influence is spattered generously across Kismet. Another bit of good fortune came in 2004, when Waits’s publisher, Lionel Conway sent a demo version of “Seed of Wonder” to the highly influential radio host Nic Harcourt at Los Angeles station KCRW, who helped make the song one of the most requested in the station’s history. Without an official release to her name, Hoop was tapped to open for the Polyphonic Spree during its summer 2007 tour.

Imagine Neil Young songs interpreted by Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams covering Townes Van Zandt, or Patty Griffin playing Tom Waits, this is how we can feel when listening Lara Ewen for the first time. With this first full length album Ghosts and Gasoline, the New York City born and raised singer and songwriter Lara Ewen accompanied with her band “The Unstrung Orchestra” is accomplishing her own ventures out of the standard East Coast waters with her own brand of bluesy, alt-country ballads. Ghosts and Gasoline is exemplary for what is essentially a first album, merging classic country and blues with a new attitude as appealing as it is satisfying. Ewen’s simple lyrics and arrangements are matched up just fine by her so satisfyingly smoky and melodic voice 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.”