Caroline Cotter Brings Her Evocative, Eclectic Northern New England Americana to Brooklyn

Caroline Cotter likes waltzes. She’s very good at them. Although she has a jazz background – one of her projects is the jaunty CC & the Swing Set – the Maine-based songwriter is also adept at channeling a whole bunch of other vintage Americana styles, from bluegrass to country blues to spirituals. And she sings in both English and French. Her latest album, Dreaming As I Do – streaming at her webpage – made a big splash in the folk music world earlier this year. She’s coming to town this May 8 at 8 PM at Pete’s Candy Store.

The album opens with Bella Blue, an elegant waltz, just acoustic guitar, mandolin and Cotter’s airy, expressive voice, its pastoral imagery imbued with an understatedly elegaic quality. Like several of the other tracks here, it could be a front-porch folk number from the mid-1800s. The title track, a wistful, sad only-in-dreams narrative, mashes up that vibe with a more upbeat levee camp blues spiritedness

The second number, A Midnight Escape paints a harrowing portrait of an old woman losing her memory and her grip on everything else along with it – it’s one of the most chilling songs of the year, bar none. By contrast, Cotter includes a couple of resolute oldtime gospel-flavored numbers here, Journey in C and I Am Satisfied, just vocals and fingersnaps. Amd on Champagne, she goes for a less over-the-top Peggy Lee Fever approach, with an artful arrangement of shuffling drumkit, wee-hours muted trumpet and Jed Bresette’s sparse bass. As she tells it, she wants some bubbles on her brain…because “these are the things that keep me sane!”

There are two tracks in French here. La Marinonette, a morosely swinging musette number, has some droll food references, but the mantra on the way out is”I’m dying of hunger,” Cotter’s voice rising to an anguished peak. The other is the surreal, playful but disquieted El Est Jaune.

The rest of the album includes Pollyanna, an aphoristic, swaying minor-key tune about the kind of girl who slips away in the night; My Evergreen, a vintage hillbilly folk love ballad; and This Place, with its evocative Down East imagery. In a world full of retro-obsessed acoustic types who come across as authentic as a Chinatown Rolex, Cotter is a breath of fresh air straight off the rugged Atlantic coast.