Orenda Fink

Orenda Fink
Invisible Ones
(Saddle Creek)
If your weirder dreams have a soundtrack, they could do a lot worse than this. On her solo debut album, the vocalist from the Saddle Creek duo Azure Ray enlists people who play for everyone from Antibalas to TV on the Radio. Though Invisible Ones soaks in the echo chamber as if it were a bubble bath and seeks an exotic aura, it can rock out when so inclined. Fink evokes a lot of things, but she’s more tantalizing than pagan music, freakier than Fiona Apple and less jokey than Rasputina. Such variety and consistency in a debut is remarkable. The taut string throwdown of “Blind Asylum” is so entrancing, it hardly needs a vocal. This will be the record to bedazzle those know-it-all witches, or make an evening at home feel like a campfire dance.
—Doug Taylor