Tara Jane O’Neil
In The Sun Lines
(Quarterstick CD)

Tara Jane O’Neil is one cool chick. First, she’s got a fucking cool name. More importantly, she’s steered some very cool bands (Retsin, The Sonora Pine, Rodan), and she’s good friends with Ida, cool band extraordinaire. She appeared in Half Cocked, a rather cool film, and most significantly, her new album is very, very cool.

In the same tasteful vein as Peregrine, her solo debut from last year, In the Sun Lines is like going to an evening party at a secluded mini-mansion where the participants are all astounding and fascinating cooks, artists, musicians and storytellers. "Your Rats Are," despite it Crispin Glover-esque title, is actually a brain-melting smear of grey tones and breezy mystery with O’Neil sounding like some hypnotized Cocteau Twin; the music around her builds and fractures off in delicate shards. A curious, bubbling instrumental follows before the pillowy pop of "Sweet Bargaining" nearly sends you into never-never land and you start questioning your ability to operate heavy machinery.

Another odd instrumental passes through and then it’s right back to the type of airy auditory odyssey that both defies classification and transports the soul. A credit to O’Neil acumen, In the Sun Lines does not fade in the later moments. "New Harm" is composed of a delicate and delicious guitar line tenderly delivered again and again, peppered with just the slightest advancements and twitches (sort of an acoustic-based version of Pray For Rain’s sonic sculptures), and the album closes with "A Noise in the Head," which creates a welcome chaos, sounding as though O’Neil tossed a bunch of odd instruments in a barrel and methodically rolled it around on the open range. Tara Jane O’Neil is a dangerously talented artist, and, well, that just makes her pretty damn cool. –Scott D. Lewis

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