Dan Reeder

Dan Reeder’s new second album Sweetheart consists of 15 original songs, plus a cover of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” that sounds like the demo version Gary Brooker probably dreamed of singing 39 years ago before all that baroque production-work got in the way. It isn’t so much a sequel to his wonderful out-of-nowhere, out-of-time 2003 debut, Dan Reeder, as it is an extension of--a more freewheeling elaboration on--his first musical offering. Certain themes recur on Sweetheart: Dan likes to be alone (“I Don’t Really Want To Talk To You”; “Just Leave Me Alone Today”); Dan likes to think about, and have, sex (“Pussy Titty”; “Pussy Heaven”--for the son of a minister, he’s got quite a mouth on him). But most of the time, Sweetheart is about the sound of Dan Reeder’s cracked, dry, confiding voice and the pleasant noises he gets out his homemade guitars, his multi-tracked harmonies with himself and his occasional puff on a harmonica.

There’s a certain stubbornness here, ...