[ folk ]
Nebraska-born Iowan Ember Schrag can do the lilting, angelic thing, lifting her voice to the heavens in syllables of easy bliss. But she knows: The devil's down deeper. Most of the time she's strumming and swaying in the middle range, where her bluesy lamentations are the most striking. "I had a peppermint stuck in my throat," she sighs. "I had an idea of love as something that people owe." Informed as much by her family's Christian zealotry as her own independent studies into poetry, the lyrics on The Sewing Room — to be released soon on Philly's Edible Onion and Single Girl Married Girl labels — have a wise, oracular quality. It's all murky and moody, but just concrete enough to get you wondering.
Thu., April 5, 7:30 p.m., $6, with Susan Alcorn and Scallion, Highwire Gallery, 2040 Frankford Ave., museumfire.com/events.htm.
