Fauxliage

iTunes Review

As both Sixpence None the Richer’s lead vocalist and as a solo artist, Leigh Nash has long proven herself an artist of nuanced charm and natural elegance. Fauxliage teams her with Canadian ambient popsters Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber (of Delerium renown) for a set of richly-textured, lyrically-bittersweet tracks. She muses her way through the album like a French film ingenue, at once vulnerable and slightly distant. Her hushed expressions of disappointment and regret are surrounded by quivering keyboards and pulsating beats in songs like “All the World,” ”Draw My Life” and “All Alone.” Though a lighter mood pervades “Someday the Wind,” the melancholy of “Let it Go” is more typical. With the notable exception of “Rafe” (a song of comfort written for a seriously ill cousin), Nash’s lyrics mostly deal with troubled relationships and free-floating angst. Leeb and Fulber come through with an agreeable pastiche of acoustic pop, mentholated British techno and (on the woozy-but-funky instrumental “Vibing”) ‘70s soul-jazz. A small-scale yet appealing release, Fauxliage delivers cool and insinuating sounds with a persistent pang of heartache.