CD Review: Keren Ann's 'Nolita'

CD Review: Keren Ann's 'Nolita'

Keren Ann's 'Nolita': Aidin Vaziri | Scientific fact: There's nothing more attractive than a frail French singer with perfect bangs and a pretty voice. Evidence? Claudine Longet. Francoise Hardy. Jane Birkin. It certainly helps if she poses topless or gets tangled in some ski-weekend murder mystery, but it's not entirely necessary. Witness Keren Ann, a young Parisian singer-songwriter who is determined to keep our love affair with sleepy-eyed, smoky-voiced chanteuses alive with her second full-length album, "Nolita." Around every corner there is a velvety hook, a haunting melody, a gently plucked acoustic guitar that sounds like a tree limb full of chirping birds. This isn't the kind of music that's going to get Velvet Revolver fans going, but it's hard to imagine anything going down better than quivering tracks like "Let Forme et le Fond" and "Que N'ai-je" at sophisticated dinner parties and sleepovers. To ensure the charm crosses cultural divides, Keren Ann does English as well, singing things like, "Won't the Sunday breeze put out the candle?," on "Greatest You Can Find," and, sounding like Hope Sandoval with a better accent, "Whether we were lost or overwhelmed, nobody knows," on "Chelsea Burns." Frankly, it's hard to stop the heart from beating so hard.