Short Take on Petra Haden

I can't seem to stop listening to Petra Haden's newest album, Petra Goes To The Movies (Anti-), which I bought two days ago. Brilliantly moving versions of various film musics, from John Williams to Bernard Herrmann, made by overdubbing her voice using a similar approach to her cover of The Who Sell Out. The layered, shifting densities of her voice, her voices, her voicings -- alternately playful and ardent -- are really and truly moving. She has a way of finding the heart of a song, of making it breathe. Her simple duo with Bill Frisell, "I Might Be You" (the Dave Grusin song from Tootsie) is a standout. She feels her way along the melody, bouyed up by the spare chords and fragile twangling of Frisell's guitar. A fantastic record.