The Resident Cards
Album: We Won't Leave Any Trace
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.facebook.com/theresidentcards

It's only a few weeks since I reviewed Erica Buettner's excellent solo album "True Love And Water" in these pages [see March album reviews].As I wrote at the time that album is highly recommended.

Now, only a matter of weeks later, we have another album by Erica, this time as one half of the duo The Resident Cards. The other half of the duo is fellow American-in- Paris, Dana Boule. Like Erica, Dana moved to Paris from America to pursue her musical career. Dana is a classically trained pianist and has scored several feature films. Indeed, her music appeared in Woody Allen's film "Midnight in Paris".

Erica and Dana met while working on a film score and they discovered that their voices blended together, so they decided to work together and The Resident Cards were born. This is their debut album and it was recorded in an apartment in Paris overlooking the Seine. The songs are all originals, with writing credits equally divided between Erica and Dana, at four songs each. The album was recorded over a period of ten months and Erica and Dana play all of the instruments themselves, apart from percussion [Boris Gronemberger] and, on one track, Matthew Bixby on guitar.

Both Dana and Erica are fine singers and their voices do blend together beautifully. Both singers have a certain similarity to Suzanne Vega [no bad thing ] and when they sing harmonies, they sound sublime. Not surprisingly, the songs have a haunting, cinematic quality which is not surprising considering their backgrounds in film music, particularly Dana's. As with Erica's solo album,the songs flow into each other seamlessly to create an integral, coherent suite of music. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to tell, without checking, who wrote which song, such is the sense of continuity.

The title of the album gives a clue as to the themes of the music. "We Won't Leave Any Trace" describes the feeling of being "strangers in a strange land", of not having permanent roots and being in a state of transience. The music is hypnotic and ethereal. Take, for example, the opening song "Gotta Shed The Old Skin" with its glorious harmonies and mantra-like chorus, or its successor, "Lie To Me", with its atmospheric, drone-like backing from Dana's accordion.

"Where'D You Go" is a rather eerie song by Dana with its use of "Sounds from outer space courtesy of Laurie Shaw", shrieks and whispered voices. The song's narrator is searching for someone who has gone "out there wandering far".

The following song by Erica , "Parisian Clouds" is a real beauty. It changes tempo midway through, to become an acoustic guitar -based folk song and then changes again, with a banjo coda played by Erica. Equally lovely is Dana's "Pyramids" in which she is "just a grain of sand who's floating by" and who "lets the wind decide where I should go ". This echoes the album's theme of "leaving no trace", of impermanence, of just passing through.

"Tumbleweed" by Erica, begins and ends with church bells and appears to deal with the break up of a relationship " I conjure up the image of a broom, sweeping parts of you out of the room" and "You are no longer mine".

The closing "Let's Get Out Of This Town " is untypically straightforward in that it is a simple suggestion to get away, to go anywhere at all, to jump the first train and to go without leaving any trace. The track fades out and all that remains is the sound of someone whistling.

As with Erica's solo album, this is a superb piece of work by two highly talented singer-songwriter-musicians who conjure up some beautiful and original music. Like Erica's album, it also comes "highly recommended".

Peter Cowley