Pyeng Threadgill made an auspicious debut last year with a CD of unorthodox readings of Robert Johnson tunes. Now the Berkeley-based jazz singer tackles a set of mostly original material, none of it blues. Much as she did on Sweet Home: The Music of Robert Johnson, Threadgill frames her bell-like alto with an inviting variety of instrumental textures and rhythms from around the African diaspora in the Americas, including cha-cha, rumba, mambo, reggae, and swing. Shimmering cellos and a soft, heartbeatlike percussive pulse provide the only support on one selection, and multitracked saxophones give a World Saxophone Quartet flavor to another. Guitarist Shelley Doty plays several superb solos – her slide work on a gentle treatment of the Cure's Close to Me is particularly appealing – and supplies chordal underpinning from time to time, but Threadgill often sings without a harmonic safety net. Her intonation is precise, as is her enunciation. Her lyrics are direct, yet radiate mystery, bringing Abbey Lincoln to mind. Indeed, Threadgill occasionally uses breathy tones that recall Lincoln, and on the disc's other nonoriginal, Fats Waller's "The Jitterbug Waltz," she interpolates her own words with those of Lincoln and Richard Malbty Jr. Pyeng Threadgill plays Wed/16, Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. (415) 552-7788. (Lee Hildebrand)

Why?
Elephant Eyelash (Anticon)

Like many of the artists in the Anticon galaxy of stars, Yoni Wolf spits a different style of flow. The latest album of his project Why?, Elephant Eyelash contains enough original thought to warrant his strange style of spoken word-folk vocals. Though at times whiny and abrasive, his voice is for the most part a subdued layer among the instrumental arrangements that rip through any genre you attempt to slap on them. Originally, Wolf intended to make Why? a solo project, but he ended up enlisting the help of superfriends Josiah Wolf, Matt Meldon, and Doug McDiarmid to quietly lay down tracks atop his dreamy indie-pop streams. Accompanied by what sounds like a complete toy orchestra play set, Wolf's lyrics combine equal parts iconic samples and heartbreaking honesty. And although Wolf claims that the lyrics form a comprehensive tale of a severed relationship, the phrases are so deeply muddied in metaphor ("Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair, hair that once sprouted from my own white wet follicles") that analyzing their meaning becomes a pseudo-philosophic homework assignment. Wolf's aching individuality shines through on this lo-fi album; with each listen a new instrument emerges, a poignant lyric surfaces, and a whole new appreciation for Elephant Eyelash is discovered. (Justin Yu)