Putting on airs
(Music)

Title from disc label.

All songs written by Erin Rae McKaskle.

Compact disc.

Credits printed on container.

Performed by Erin Rae (vocals, electric & acoustic guitars) ; with accompaniment.

Recorded,2017 February 13-20,The Refuge, Appleton, WI.

What is the thought you think before you say the thing you think you should say? What about the one that you keep close to your own heart, but don't share? Repeated listening to Erin Rae's latest album brings riddles like that one to mind. Erin Rae is a singer-songwriter adept in making personal inquiries feel universal; in Nashville, where she lives, listeners flock to her shows to absorb her lucent energy and the insights she offers without fuss. To really appreciate the gift of her music, however, you have to spend time with it: to bring your own calm to the experience, taking time to notice the way she tells stories about the moments before an intimate confession, or the hours spent in solitude afterward, or the times when you're just hanging out wondering if the courage to share what's important will ever come. "What happens in the art of intimacy, of what happens in the space between us?" the writer Stacey D'Erasmo once asked. The songs on Putting On Airs ask the same question. The answers are sometimes sad, but beautiful. The honesty of Putting on Airs is so sincere that often times it sounds like Rae is admitting her feelings for the first time, startled by her own candidness. But despite its intimacy, Putting on Airs is not a heavy record. Rae, in complete control of her craft, is being her authentic self, and we feel the lightness that comes with that.