Annalisa Tornfelt’s got a supple, yearning voice that enriches every song she sings on Black Prairie’s second album, A Tear in the Eye Is a Wound in the Heart (Sugar Hill). “How You Ruin Me” and “Richard Manuel” put romantic love and musical rapture on the same pedestal, approaching both like the sweet, painful mysteries they are. But just as often, Tornfelt lets her violin do the talking — along with Chris Funk’s Dobro, Jenny Conlee-Drizos’ accordion and all kinds of strings and percussion — and it’s on lively instrumental tunes like “Dirty River Stomp” and “Taraf” that Black Prairie’s reverent twist on sounds from the American South and Eastern Europe is most engaging. While their real roots are in Portland — Colin Meloy’s the only Decemberist absent from the album — the band’s joyous genre-spanning is authentic.
Thu., Nov. 8, 9 p.m., $10-$12, with Casey Neill, MilkBoy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., 215-925-MILK, milkboyphilly.com.
