Birdman
2003
A Place Where I Know (Four-Track Songs 1992-2002)
About This Album
Perhaps the only thing more surprising than how perennially overlooked Paula Frazer's songwriting has been is just how consistently great it has been over the years. A Place Where I Know: 4-Track Songs 1992-2002 is an intimate audio sketchbook that also functions nearly as well as a greatest-hits collection, gathering most of the highlights from her two Tarnation albums, Gentle Creatures and Mirador, as well as her first album under her own name, Indoor Universe. As gorgeous as those albums are, their slightly fussy productions occasionally detract from Frazer's songwriting, and surround her remarkable voice with arrangements that sometimes compete with it instead of compliment it. Here, it's just that voice, her guitar, some overdubs, and the songs. Unlike many artists, Frazer has a good sense of her strongest work, and A Place Where I Know begins with three of her best songs: Indoor Universe's reflective, regretful "The Only One," a beautifully spare version of Gentle Creatures' "Halfway to Madness," and Mirador's "An Awful Shade of Blue," on which Frazer's vocalizing sounds like the wind blowing through the trees. Her music has always been ethereal, but the lack of drums and soft blanket of bedroom-studio hiss that covers it here makes it even more so.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,7,9,10 and 11)

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