Sleep, Baby, Sleep

Listeners familiar with Nicolette Larson's early work as a vocalist with Commander Cody will know right away that this project comes from her smoother-edged solo career. She scored big-easy rock hits, after all, a cynic might add, so it makes sense that her first release of the 1990s (nine years separate this recording and its predecessor, Say When) would be softened by keyboard washes and muted rhythms. But there's a simple reason for this CD's quietude, its floating gentleness: Larson writes in the liner notes that she wrote the songs as she sat by her daughter Elsie May's hospital bed as her daughter recovered. The music had to be all gentle and nonintrusive, and that's how it comes across. This is a great disc to spin as you rock the newborn. Larson's voice peeks out exceptionally as she covers an unreleased Neil Young tune ("Barefoot Floors") and presents a tender reading of "I Bid You Goodnight." Persistently fine layers of accordion and bowed cello give the keyboard-laden environments surprising warmth. --Andrew Bartlett