Lori Carson - Everything I Touch Runs Wild (1997)

On her third solo effort, Everything I Touch Runs Wild, the underrated singer/songwriter Lori Carson offers her barest, most personal compositions yet. One reason for this direction was due in part to recording the entire album in her own apartment, as well as to Carson producing it herself. By combining her soothing, gentle vocals with an acoustic backing, the results are often both irresistibly sweet and engaging. Her voice can be compared at times to Sarah McLachlan's, especially on the album's opener, "Something's Got Me" (which is also present in an album-closing "original version"). Simplicity and economy are stressed throughout, with the instruments (piano, clean guitar, accordion, etc.) leaving plenty of room to be filled by Carson's vocals, such as on the track "Make a Little Luck." The picture of a calm winter landscape is painted convincingly on "Snow Come Down," while "Fade" creates a feeling of melancholia. Included on initial pressings of Everything I Touch Runs Wild is a bonus second disc of remixes, which contains radical electronic makeovers of "Something's Got Me" (three separate versions) and "I Saw the Light."