I never attended Lilith Fair-- it wasn't really my scene, or rather, it was a scene that reminded me of tenth grade field-hockey away games, when we'd traverse the state, listening to the Indigo Girls and XTC on the school van's stereo. This was 1991: we thought Indigo Girls' songs were about boys. We believed we were cool, sort of, in the way only slightly off-kilter, naïve, uptight prep school girls might define as cool. We spent a lot of time waxing poetic about private Northeastern colleges and liberal politics and applying high school-level critical theory to R.E.M. and Cure lyrics. I don't look back at this part of my life with any great fond reminiscence or melodramatic despair. It was non-threatening, easy, heavily estrogenated, and dull. Six years later, when I was invited to attend Lilith Fair festivities "as a guilty pleasure," the idea seemed about as appealing as retaking Algebra II.

While I was singing along to Skylarking and speculating over how many of my field hockey teammates would be able to justify rhinoplasty after suffering game-time facial injury, Kaia Wilson was teaming up with Donna Dresch to form Team Dresch in Portland, Oregon. Their album, Personal Best, garnered critical acclaim and earned Team Dresch the designation as one of the most outspoken and recognizable queer-core outfits. Wilson left Team Dresch shortly after their second release and moved to Durham, North Carolina, where she co-founded Mr. Lady and split her time between recording with the Butchies and putting out solo material.

Kaia's latest solo album, the largely acoustic, confessional Oregon, is an exemplary representation of the under-the-radar, user-friendly female folk-pop genre. I don't listen to a whole lot of this stuff, in part due to an irrational hatred of Ani Difranco (to whom Kaia bears some musical similarity) and all her friends, but this is a safe bet for anyone who's into that kind of thing. Oregon starts out with a sweet natured ode to-- I believe-- Amelia Earhart, called "World's Greatest Haircut." It's a fairly simple major-key acoustic number that builds gradually with broad harmonies and light piano.

The predominating theme here, if there is one, is loss. "Mira" laments the early death of a friend with a country twang and the backing vocals of Indigo Girls' Amy Ray. In the same vein, "Jasper" features harmonica and lyrics like, "When Jasper left, he left for good." Oregon also features a significantly stripped down, acoustic Cure cover, "Catch," and the jazzy "Storm," which seems to be the most fully realized song on the album, both in structure and instrumentation. "Make Me Please" is a great one-minute pop song played with drum machine and steel drum keyboard setting. This sounds weird-- and it is-- but I would have preferred more songs in this vein.

Kaia has a nice voice, an ear for integrating harmony, and a somewhat distinctive touch on the acoustic guitar. Lyrically, much of the album is somewhat self-absorbed and confessional, but that's the nature of the beast. Kaia doesn't take a lot of risks, save for "Make Me Please" and the goofy new-age keyboards on "Air." Oregon is the kind of music you expect to hear while browsing in your local gynocentric bookstore, or wafting from the dorm windows of peasant-bloused, mooneyed, Birkenstock-ed college girls with really good skin. It's nowhere near as distasteful as the vast majority of mainstream mopey girl music out there,but if you have to ask at this point if it rocks...well, no.

Not to speak pejoratively of our fair readers, but I suspect there are more than a few of you who shudder when I invoke the name of Lilith Fair. Likewise, I suspect if a Y-chromosoned rocker had released a nicely produced, adult contemporary folk rock solo album, I wouldn't even be writing this review. Kaia's back catalog as a member of both the Butchies and Team Dresch shows punk rock tendencies that don't really have a whole hell of a lot to do with this album. On the other hand, Oregon is a solid, well-written, well-executed release that probably deserves the attention of the legions of fans currently shelling out substantive sums of cash to attend Ani Difranco shows. Well done, for what it is.

-Alison Fields, May 10th, 2002