With her debut CD outing, Red Hook's Krista Weaver offers compelling lyrics and simple but memorable melodies in a spare, folk, alternative-country setting.

That said, it's not too serious. The title track holds such gems as "He was kinda like a turkey, without any stuffin' / he wasn't really bad, he was good for nothin'." Her delicate yet emotive voice shines in the haunting "Street of the Volcanic Love Affair," the musical equivalent of a hot summer night, while "Once Upon a Time" and "The Owl and the Tiger" sound as if they were recorded in a dimly lit Greenwich Village coffee house in around 1962.

This bare-bones recording has an endearing simplistic quality, not entirely unlike Dylan's first electric band recordings produced by Bob Johnston. The songs are at once new and relevant, and at the same time old and timeless. Theses days, that's called Americana.

Ultimately, So Long, Arlington and Other Stories is a quiet, thoughtful little masterpiece. For more on the artist, visit www.kristaweaver.com. To purchase the CD, go to www.cdbaby.com.

Listening to this CD is like finding buried treasure. Laurie MacAllister gives voice to perfectly selected covers that include Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" and The Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping." Cliff Eberhardt contributes acoustic, steel, Dobro, and Tacoma Papoose guitar performances, while Dar Williams sings harmonies. Eberhardt produced the CD, and a long list of players weave powerful magic on multiple instruments, often in the same song. Their task is creating the atmosphere in which MacAllister flexes her vocal mastery. The opening song, "Coal Tattoo" by Billy Edd Wheeler, played like a rapid-fire bluegrass breakdown, is almost cheerful at this tempo. It is in sad songs that singers prove themselves, and MacAllister should take a bow. This sophisticated group of emotional ballads and lullabies to left-behind lovers is a poignant passion play.

The album is available exclusively at Barnes & Noble stores nationwide and on www.barnesandnoble.com. For more information and a few audio clips, go to www.lauriemacallister.com.

One gets the feeling that Ross Rice is attempting to point to something real on his new album, Dwight (the name is short for "Da white boy," a nickname he got while cutting his teeth with Memphis and Stax legends like Donald "Duck" Dunn, Bobby Manuel, Jim Spake, and Gary Johns). Rice's lyrics are several steps beyond the typical radio fare, sometimes seeming to have been ripped straight out of his diary. This isn't about hooks, chops, or attitude; you can almost hear the record company exec grumbling that he doesn't hear a single. But these songs grow on you with repeated listening.

Rice's production is dense, lush, and complex; the impact of the songs might be more immediate if the lyrics and arrangements were both more spare. But there's no doubt Rice knows songcraft. He connects with himself well—that's 75 percent of the job—and he's got all the tools to connect equally well with his audience. When he chooses the simple and direct—as on the rocker "Hard Times for the Revolution" and the jazzy "(I Just Wanna) Hang With My Baby"—the results are formidable.

So, what does he sound like? Peter Gabriel and Dave Matthews tag-team mud wrestling with David Gilmour and George Harrison. www.rossrice.net. Available at www.memphisrecords.com and www.cdbaby.com.