He with his naked soul shall pierce into the other naked souls… - Plato, "Gorgias"

From her voice to her vision to her songwriting to her discriminating taste, the music of Laura Cantrell has a kind of purity that seems of another time and place.

Imagine yourself in a coffeehouse: nestled in a broken-in chair, sipping your favorite coffee blend and enjoying the lovely vocals of St. Louis folk singer-songwriter, Monica Casey, whose peaceful storytelling brings attention to matters of the heart.

Fiona Apple
"The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw & Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do"
Epic

Seven years after releasing her last album, Fiona Apple has returned with a familiarly dark, introspective album full of heady rhythm and scraps of autobiographical allegory.

In a world full of aspiring singer-songwriters, Slaid Cleaves is the real thing.

With a voice as direct as a conversation, Samantha Harlow spins stories reflecting the tiny corners and frayed edges of lives most often ignored.

Greg Laswell, the melancholy troubadour responsible for an impressive slew of songs featured on cable TV shows such as "One Tree Hill" and "True Blood," rolled into the Old Rock House with a six-piece band that featured players from openers Elizabeth and the Catapult.

The music and art of Joseph Arthur is provocative and vulnerable and always beautiful. Whether performing solo or with a band, he opens doors to his own soul -- and ours.

On Thursday night, Gregory Alan Isakov performed a well-attended show at the Old Rock House. Behind him stood a projected, sepia-tinged, photo depicting a rural youth listening intently to a large, conical, medieval-looking, horn-shaped hearing device.

Anders Osborne has reinvented himself many times before, but given the way his life and career are going these days, he'd rather keep things just way they are for a while.