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With Whiskeytown winding down, Caitlin Cary has followed the lead of bandmate Ryan Adams and stepped out alone. With an album due in the new year, Waltzie is an 6-track EP of earlier recordings, a more slipshod, living room affair before she lets us in on her more considered side. And while Adams' solo outing has seen him fall back on a more folk-tinged sound, Waltzie similarly takes Cary a step away from the country heartbreak of Whiskeytown and nearer to a more pastoral style of English folk. It's there in the beguiling innocent lilt of opening song Sorry, as Cary sings, "you are a knarled pear tree/ near an oak that binds your bitter root." It's an irresistible heartbreaker, one that immediately becomes the reason for this record's existence, and it's followed by four other reasons, including Cary's sparse cover of Richard & Linda Thompson's Withered and Died. Brief it may be, but Waltzie is damn near perfect in its own low key, unassuming way, and as a tantaliser for the album it couldn't be bettered.

Martin Williams
CWAS #6 - Autumn 2000

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