Lori Carson is a woman's woman. She's been a successful singer on the NYC scene for some years, working on two Golden Palominos albums. And collaborations with Bill Laswell and Graeme Revell suggest, as a resume would, her potential. When I first heard Lori Carson, I'd just come out of a coffeeshop deep in the Village after having my tonsils licked by one of the hottest kittens you ever did see. She stained my lipstick rose, and I stained hers black, if you get my drift.

My ears perked up and my nipples hardened as I connected to her song that day, the words speaking directly to my disaffected side. She was wrapped her arms around me in a protective embrace. Her world-weariness touched me, and ever since, I've been telling all my friends about her-- the butches and the bitches.

Thus, I am proud to review this, Carson's newest album. I've moved on since I first heard her, and so has she. Her edginess has been replaced by a suggestive softness that almost soothes my repulsion at the color pink. And while she still paints sun-filled still-lifes populated by the poetic detail of brushstrokes, she whispers her miniature portraits to a microphone surrounded by sweet cellos, guitars and trumpets. Brushstrokes suggesting the production sense of trip-hop make their suggestion-- a drum loop here, an echo there-- but this couldn't be mistaken for a Portishead album. It's urban folk with some well-advised bells and whistles thrown in at appropriate moments, never overwhelming the withheld power of delicate songwriting and vocals.

The mood of Stars lingers somewhere around regretful hopelessness, like the feeling I had when that bitch, Irene, stole my Doc Martens. Stars manages to straddle the line between somber and inspiring with incredible skill, avoiding both candy-coating and the self-pity I see too often in "victim" women. No, Carson demonstrates her power as an individual by harnessing it in a package both light and heavy, delivering message and sound. Stars transcends her earlier work and will surely never be "big," a sign of its innate greatness.

-Jamie Wisdom