On her debut album, Tywanna Jo Baskette stakes out terrain among idiosyncratic singer/songwriters like Jane Siberry, Sam Phillips and Nick Drake. With a childlike voice strangled through a larynx that sounds smoke- and gin-seared, the Nashville-based Baskette hews a rough’n’ready country-rock and folk hybrid, switching between electric and acoustic arrangements. Like a 10-year-old rhyming off the top of her head, Baskette writes ditties more than tunes with a sing-songy tone. Her offhand lyrics include an ode to her lost parakeet (“Parakeet”), an a cappella screed about lung cancer (“1985/1998”) and a song about pink underwear (“Pink”). Baskette has been compared to Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits, but her quirky intonations and quirkier lyrics are so lacking in drama, form or imagery that she more closely recalls the Shaggs, a group that is legendary for its willful amateurism.—JD
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