Cara Beth Satalino

For her latest solo release, Cara Beth Satalino strips her sound back, letting the indie exteriors of Outer Spaces flicker away with the firelight. A more personal, intimate record than she’s presented prior, Little Green, finds the songwriter sifting through the soul with a bit of restraint and some help from measured drums, pedal steel, and cello. The songs on Little Green are tender, vulnerable, and absolutely engrossing. It’s hard to ignore Satalinio’s candlelight lilt, the kind of songs that are born of quiet moments, doubt, dreams, luck, memory, and melancholy. The songs, with their inherent quiver, are some of the strongest in Satalino’s catalog. A light lick of country does her songwriting good, and while the record revels in its subtle vision and austerity, it succeeds most on knowing just what to add and when.

Dan Kassel’s cello work does a good deal of heavy lifting on Little Green, giving songs a heft that could otherwise slip away with such a slight setup. It rounds out many of the tracks, massaging the heart throughout Satalino’s bittersweet odes. Likewise, Chester Gwazda, also of Outer Spaces and producer of Future Islands and Dan Deacon, helps shape the album with keys, guitar, and the aforementioned light lick of percussion. There’s a good parallel to be made between Satalino’s works and RSTB faves like Leah Senior or Joan Shelley. Like both of those contemporaries, Statalino has a way of turning her confessions into earworms that catch the breeze. Little Green vaults to the top of Cara Beth’s catalog, a lovely release that’s a pleasure to return to again and again.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.