Into the Dark

Swelling unison riffs, ringing drones and lattice-work accompaniment: Into the Dark is a celebration of American string playing par excellence. Laura Cortese’s ensemble features as many as 20 musicians, giving this album a lusciously dense texture, and boasts a surplus of fiddle talent including Hanneke Cassel and Natalie and Brittany Haas.

The Boston-based Cortese is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, the school that takes in talented young string players and spits out all-rounder folk and jazz artists. A violinist and viola player with a mellifluous alto singing voice, Cortese is also an increasingly impressive songwriter and top-notch arranger. Into the Dark is her most ambitious recording project to date, a selection of her own songs alongside arrangements of standards and covers, which fuses her varied Americana sound with a pop sensibility. Cortese’s own songs, such as elegiac opener ‘For Catherine’, have rather a melancholy quality, with a dash of darkness in the poetry of her lyrics. This is offset by the other songs here, such as the sparkling country tune ‘Heel to Toe’ and the groovy folk-pop of Laura Veirs’ ‘Life is Good Blues’, which bring a satisfying balance to this fine set.