Sweet deliveries of the commonplace gives Flutterby wings

Butterfly Boucher

Flutterby

A’M Records

Recommended…

Butterfly Boucher

Flutterby

A’M Records

Recommended if you like: Sarah McLachlan

From her British-looking, slightly punk picture on the cover of her album, Flutterby, Butterfly Boucher appears to be out to kick your ass. But in reality, Boucher is from Australia, sounds like she’s from Ireland, has far from even the slightest touch of Sleater-Kinney, and most likely does not want to kick your ass. Well, that last part is just an assumption.

In her song “Never Let It Go,” Boucher addresses perhaps the sharpest criticism thrown her way by first singing “Oh, another song about love gone right” and then by answering “ooh, but my stories are so sweet!”

She’s right. Her songs are about the fairly commonplace themes of love and relationships, but her deliveries of them are so delicious that it hardly seems to matter that the subject has been addressed before.

In what might be the perfect control freak’s work, Boucher writes, composes and performs almost every song. Listening to Flutterby with that in mind makes each piece even more enjoyable, considering the amount of raw talent necessary to complete them.

Sewn together are a string of instruments, including guitars, drums, bass, piano, organ and banjo, a set of lyrics that is thoughtful at worst and whimsical at best, and a voice that’s as charming as it is delicate.

Boucher stretches the idea of the one-woman singer-songwriter band well beyond the traditional Dylan into an arrangement of sounds that most multi-person groups couldn’t compete with.

Flutterby has all the fun and exuberance of a debut album without sacrificing any amount of later-work polish that sometimes wrecks first attempts.

Boucher’s “I’m a chick that can either break your heart or rock your socks off” persona is sexy, cool and so completely professional that you’d almost have to assume that she’ll record forever.

If she keeps it up, she probably will.