I've been waiting for "Jennifer O'Connor":http://www.jenniferoconnor.net 's new album since "I saw her open for Hotel Lights earlier this summer":http://mog.com/Dean_Browell/blog_post/4702. She was a gracious, talented and touching musician who played alone on the stage that particular performance and impressed the hall of a couple dozen as the crowd built. By the end of her performance everyone was paying heavy attention, worried they missed too much by underestimating her.Afterward, she was equally sweet and unassuming. She happily signed a poster for my daughter and chatted with Darren Jesse, who seem genuinely comforted by her presence on this first date of the short tour up the east coast.Now I can sit among the rainy windows and take in her new album with all of its bare honesty and telling rhymes. She's a singer-songwriter in the best sense- i.e., it's a sense of her own. The album is perfectly produced, which is to say it isn't over-produced and instead showcases an intimacy that nearly produces a feeling of her breath from the speakers, as if she was singing over your shoulder (particularly on tracks like "Today").I'd be remiss to not comment on the content of the album, and you know what, I think I'll risk just being remiss. ("Pitchfork liked the LP and covers this subject if you're interested":http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/38138/Jennifer_OConnor_Over_the_Mountain_Across_the_Valley_and_Back_to_.) Suffice to say that in terms of lyrics this album speaks to loss in the same personal and nuanced way that the Eels' __Electroshock Blues__ did. But this album isn't about what we think of Jennifer's life, it's about what we feel when we listen to her express herself. And I find it beautiful."":http://www.jenniferoconnor.net/