Sari Brown

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a chorus that had me singing along by the third repeat. And "Brown Sandstone" runs from sweet to dramatic with the best line of the album: "It sucks to know you want to be a woman / When you're starting all over like a kid."

At twenty-two, Sari Brown is somewhere between a woman and a kid, and her creative output straddles the divide beautifully. She's been writing folksy music since fourteen, recorded her first album at sixteen, and has been performing live all that time. Her experience shows in her stage presence--comfortable and confident--while her youth comes through in a charming giggle and too much talk about the next tune.

Color Suite, her second album, is similarly a mix of mature skill and overwrought analysis. It's a concept album in multiple layers. Every song but "Lesley" contains a color in the title, and the CD package includes a lengthy booklet of original writings by Brown. These are organized according to the song titles, but they are not the lyrics; instead, you get poems, letters, short stories, and folk tales, some of which illuminate the lyrics (which can be found at saribrown.com). Frankly, it's a bit much. But it comes together as an impressive work of multimedia art.

Brown's writing is graced with the keen observations of someone who likes to take pictures and study the grass. And while most songs are about love, they aren't all love songs. She explores many kinds of love and relationships, more deeply than would seem possible at this early stage of life.