This music obsessed singer/songwriter packed a generous 20 songs onto Ready Or Not. Jordan Finley's versatile voice warms in celebrations and whispering prayers, and her guitar work is just as flexible. Whether strumming the blues or picking a complex instrumental, she is consistent and engaging.

In "Little Secrets," twangy country guitar is matched with her yodeling lilt, creating a broken-hearted tragedy that ends with a ray of sunlight. "Memorial Day" is gleaned from tombstones in a graveyard. Her husband, Brazilian jazzman Matt Finley, plays on "Under The Radar" and "Whenever Winter Comes," and there's a long list of powerhouse players on the disc that include Clifford Carter and Cyro Baptista. On the instrumental "Jumping On The Bed," Denise plays big fat notes on her perfectly tuned Rain Song graphite guitar. The last track, "Music Teacher Blues," is a funny, live performance that tells the tale of teaching young people who don't always want to learn, but think they are experts on the subject. You can check out cdbaby.com and listen to Ready Or Not, or go to denisejordanfinley.com to check out her extensive schedule of area appearances.

I first heard Swati ("Star" in Hindi) last year while stranded with only a car radio. Expecting to hear the momentarily interesting, but ultimately inconsequential, pop/folk/rock mush, I desultorily tuned to WDST, lucky enough to hear a live session with Swati, a 32-year-old Indian-American singer-songwriter from the Lower East Side. Who was this woman whose music was at once so sexy, sublime, sad, strident, and smartass?

Swati is a paradox on this 10-song debut. Her voice is forthright and breathy, a lovely yet edgy conduit for plaintive imaginings and rhapsodic desperation. Removing four of her acoustic guitar's 12 strings and often treating it like a percussion instrument, she manages to reproduce Indian music's mesmerizing minor key chords and uses repetitive picking patterns to invoke passion, regret, and fury ("Big Bang" and "Money"), as well as coming-to-terms ("New Me"). Swati wears her emotions on her sleeve, singing about "dopamine rising/dopamine falling" ("Stay"), a New Jersey prostitute asking "Ain't you got no friends?" ("Blackjack"), and escaping superficiality ("Dodge"). Her cover of Springsteen's "I'm on Fire" is steamier than the Boss could ever hope for. As she sings in "Dodge," Swati "believe[s] in brutal honesty," and in "Small Gods," she "need[s]"—and gives—"more than just beautiful." www.swatilive.com.

How do you like your country music? Churned out by a honky-tonk devil or touched by an angel? Fundamentalists believe music was created solely to praise The Lord (and to beat up heathens), but Lisa Dudley offers a new genre: New Age Country. On this self-produced CD, recorded at Ozark, Missouri, the Woodstock-based singer/songwriter croons in a supple, weather-beaten voice about healing light, guardian angels perched on various body parts and the love of a far more nurturing and forgiving Jesus. 

The only lineage that Dudley reveals is that her great-grandmother hailed from Oklahoma. Whether she was born and raised there and channels family history or simply has a galloping case of Dustbowl envy is not apparent. But Dudley's compositions are a refreshing change from the usual bunch of mewling pro-war hayseed pap currently on the charts and, uncannily, have the immediate feel of a lived-in standard. Besides, I tip my hat to anyone who can sing of a convoy of trucker angels and insists it's a true story. If Dudley's ditties of hard luck and sweet inspiration occasionally flirt with over-earnestness, the crack team of musicians she has assembled on fiddle, mouth harp, dobro, and upright bass gallantly rescue her from bathos. www.lisadudley.com.