[review 2004: the best of the year]

Dreamer’s Book is the album that flew under everyone’s radar; the slight coverage Kendall Jane Meade’s project received is unfortunate considering the hidden treasures on the album. Dreamer’s Book is an album of quiet pleasures, its blend of pop-influenced folk and roots-rock creating a lush atmosphere of composed beauty.

There isn’t a bad song in the bunch here. “Off Blue” is the apparent centerpiece of the album, with “Off Blue Richmond” and the hidden outro reprising the central motif. It’s also the emotional and musical heart of the album, the sweet violin and the gently strummed guitar lending a down-home, free-ranging feel to the song. On the other tracks, Mascott sticks mostly to two gears�relaxed and nearly somnambulant. “L.O.V.E” is pure spaced-out haze, its languid pace lending the song an almost visceral quality. “Time Waits” is another vaguely psychedelic outing, sounding like a lullaby sung through the ether.

A couple of tracks are more upbeat; “Turn Off / Turn On” sounds like a lively version of a Mary Lou Lord song, and “The Write-Up” has a definite spring to its step. But of the more energetic songs, closer “Song From A Dream” is the most alluring, with Meade’s soft vocals sit atop a hushed wall of sound. In fact, all of Dreamer’s Book seems to recall 60s Americana, evoking images of mountains, fresh springs and long treks across back roads and highways.

In the end, it’s very hard to describe exactly what it is about Dreamer’s Book that’s so compelling. You can only throw adjectives like “lush” and “dream-like” around so many times before you realize they only begin to explain what it is you get out of the album. Perhaps it’s simply that Dreamer’s Book sounds so peaceful and unhurried that I can’t help but feel that way myself whenever I put it on. And ultimately, for an album to have such a direct connection to your emotional state is more than you can expect from most records.