{"id":23168,"date":"2022-06-19T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23168"},"modified":"2022-06-15T11:47:21","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T15:47:21","slug":"album-review-ellen-starski-saras-half-finished-love-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/19\/album-review-ellen-starski-saras-half-finished-love-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Ellen Starski &#8212; Sara&#8217;s Half Finished Love Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-23169\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellen_starski.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellen_starski.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellen_starski-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellen_starski-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Tuneful, heartfelt and impeccably arranged singer-songwriter fare is the stock in trade of Ellen Starski. On the Nashville artist\u2019s latest release, <i>Sara\u2019s Half-Finished Love Affair<\/i>, she presents a varied set of songs. Rising above the singer-with-an-acoustic milieu, Starski draws deftly from glitchy 90s\u2019 alt rock (Suzanne Vega\u2019s <i>99.9F\u00b0<\/i> seems a useful reference point), Americana (the keening yet subtle slide guitar that adorns \u201cCome to Me Lover\u201d), trip-hop (\u201cThe Satellite That Changed its Tune\u201d) and other flavors. Her strong and clear voice is a wonderfully expressive instrument, and she employs is expertly, never in a showy manner, always in service to the songcraft.<\/p>\n<p>For me the high point is the uptempo yet vaguely sinister \u201cHave We Forgotten,\u201d but there\u2019s much to savor among the album\u2019s eleven tracks. \u201cFollow My Lead\u201d features a delightfully evocative string arrangement, and the moody, percussive \u201cFind Your Way\u201d conjures a haunted, melancholy vibe. And the title track that closes the record doubles down on that quality, with a spare arrangement that subtly includes all manner of treats, most notably a high-lonesome guitar figure. If this album is the sound of a half-finished love affair, here\u2019s hoping it never ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuneful, heartfelt and impeccably arranged singer-songwriter fare is the stock in trade of Ellen Starski. On the Nashville artist\u2019s latest release, Sara\u2019s Half-Finished Love Affair, she presents a varied set [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,49,65,73],"tags":[4868],"class_list":["post-23168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-new-release","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-ellen-starski","cat-39-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23168"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23172,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168\/revisions\/23172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}