Kind sounds for our troubled times 

 Listening to the new CD, "About the Heart" is like bumping into a friend on Main Street in Brattleboro or outside of the Putney Post Office. It's a warm, friendly encounter ... time out in a busy day to catch up on life, love, family, travel. A bright, affirming moment that reminds us why we live here and what's important.


The 10 songs on the new CD by Vermont Timbre -- Mike Mrowicki and Amelia Struthers -- with the help of talented friends like Julian McBrowne (vocals, bass), Derrik Jordan (electric violin, percussion), Jeremy Holsch (drums), Walter Slowinski (sax) and Tom LaBella (sax), do not reach out, grab you by the ears and demand to be listened to. Instead, they come up to you with kindness, a pat on the back, a friendly smile and warm words.

On "About the Heart," Mrowicki and Struthers unveil simple but catchy songs with straightforward but important messages -- faith that things will come out right; paeans to love, however it comes; honest contemplations of mortality and the passage of time; sweet memories of better days; hopeful prayers for more of those good times.

The musicianship is high-caliber, but the album is produced with an organic feel, a sense that all of the playing is in service to what the song says. There is no room for divas on "About the Heart" ... only old friends speaking candidly.

As I listened to "About the Heart," one simple thought kept coming back to me -- this is the kind of album that's exactly the tonic for our uncertain, stressful times. We all could use a little "About the Heart" right about now.

-- Jon Potter
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