(K)

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Few guitarists and songwriters conjure more with less than Tara Jane O'Neil. The Portland native is a highly regarded visual artist, and you'd have to be aurally colorblind not to hear the connections in these simple but richly nuanced songs. For her 5^th record, O'Neil has stripped down what was already pretty sparse and relies almost exclusively on droning open notes and the occasional shaker for percussion.

That doesn't mean the music - highlighted by her delicate voice and warm guitar tones - lacks sufficient bottom end, though a few cuts do feel as if they may just float off into the ether.  But those drones form the backbone of O'Neil's hypnotic songs. Residing atop them are the textured notes O'Neil coaxes from her guitars, whether in cascading glissandos or droning vibratos, octave blocks or ringing lines. "Dig In," whose title could serve as the record's narrative mantra, opens with epic vibrato lines -- much like those Bill Elm uses to set the mood with Friends of Dean Martinez -- before flowering into a gentle pattern of overlapping dulcimer-like tones, ethereal harmonies, shaker beats, and that nearly omnipresent open-string drone. "Drowning" has a near hurdy-gurdy Irish reel sound, O'Neil's guitar eventually raining a few well-placed notes here and there like thunderheads on the horizon. A few bent-string notes, diminished chords, splashes of synth and cello lines stalk "Howl," morphing it into a shadow-filled folk song. The record's centerpiece is the two-song combo "Pearl Into Sand" and "Beast, Go Along" -- the former's drone and high-plains slide conjures Native American rituals until synth-oscillations carry it into the guitar glissandos and string squiggles of the latter as O'Neil warns of the beast's imminent arrival.

As enjoyable as most of the songs are, A Ways Away  lacks the impact of 2006's In Circles mostly because it rarely changes temperature, cruising along at the same gentle pace throughout. Much of that can be attributed to the lack of traditional percussion, but the record - like her others - belongs to O'Neil and her guitars, and the spaces in between where her evocative playing flowers.

Standout Tracks: "Dig In" and "The Drowning Electric" JOHN SCHACHT