First, hello again — finally came around to deciding what my first review would be! Hope some find it of interest. 

Chris and Carla make for an interesting duo in that they’re the even less well-known spinoff of a cult band. But then, nobody said following one’s muse would be easy. Chris Eckman and Carla Torgerson, to give their full names, are the long-term guiding lights behind the Walkabouts, a Seattle-area group that well-predated the whole grunge explosion and has now fully ridden out all the aftereffects. Pinning the group’s music down is hard to do, which is part of the joy — originally inspired by outfits like the Go-Betweens (the band’s name is an indirect tribute to that group), the Walkabouts have tackled everything from skeletal, disturbing folk and country roots to experimental oddities and shadowy, elegant late-night European nightclub music, if you will. Their latest album, the all-covers tribute _The Train Leaves At Eight_, stretches from Portuguese to Norwegian roots, touching on everything from dEUS to Neu!, the latter honored with a striking version of _Neu! 75_’s “Leb Wohl.” Yet all the while they’ve sounded mostly like themselves, musically adept, often melancholic, never simply morose.

Chris and Carla on their own have created a range of similar albums, two studio efforts (the slightly more traditional _Life Full of Holes_ and the intriguing, electronics-tinged _Swinger 500_) and three live albums, one of which is was a one-time collaboration with a band of Greek musicians, _Nights Between Stations_. _Ljubljana_, in contrast, features just them, their voices and instruments — guitars, a keyboard, and that’s about it.

Recorded in the city in question in early 1995, _Ljubljana_ is a demonstration of the power of direct, immediate performing — minimal instrumentation, just the artists and what they have — without sounding like a pointless revival or revisitation. They draw on their many roots — everything from the set-ending covers of Charlie Rich and the Carter Family to a perfectly beautiful, hushed version of Nick Cave’s “Loom of the Land.” But Chris and Carla create modern music, something that captures the now. A line from “Velvet Fog,” originally done with the Tindersticks, gives a sense of it: “Nirvana’s on the jukebox/But Gene Pitney owns this town.”

Carla’s voice is the more pure country of the two, her twang always present, the type of heartache caught in it that not even the blandest and most overwrought of Nashville product can erase — and that thankfully has never been an option they’ve pursued. Chris is rougher, a bit raspier, and no less passionate, sometimes with the most disarming of lines. When he sings the key line on “Sleep Will Pass Us By,” “This town died/But they forgot the funeral,” you can easily conjure up your own scenario, whatever place you wanted to get away from, or succeeded in doing.

It’s an album for reflection, _Ljubljana_, one that draws you in with the subtlest of pulls. You can sense the audience hanging on every word and understand the heartfelt cheers after each song, and note with pleasure that Chris and Carla have a gentle, disarming ease with each other on stage and with the audience. Not to mention a sense of humor, something that keeps them from being entrapped in a darker public image — even if it’s as simple as asking for a volunteer on harmonica!

The best place to find this album is via the Thrift Store at http://​thewalkabouts​.com — it’s set up for the American fans mostly, since most Walkabouts and related releases have only come out in Europe, but since _Ljubljana_ has only been sold on tours otherwise, it’s the best place to find them. They’re a fine bunch to investigate further.