Cheri Knight -- "The Northeast Kingdom" (E-Squared)

Alternative country hickster Cheri Knight is a Yankee through and through. No twang in her supple, expressive voice. On her new E-Squared release, The Northeast Kingdom, she sings of the land and landscapes of the soul usually the themes of below-the-Mason Dixon artists. A militant and committed gardener, she understands nature's intertwined beauty and cruelty, broken hearts that know better, blood feuds and jealousy. Produced by the Twangtrust, label founder and country maverick Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy, the propulsive tracks are "organic" and rootsy with references to the early Byrds, Celtic dirges, Appalachian folkgrass, 4/4 swing and modern twangster rock.

Through those tracks emerge a lyrical reality born of that magic time gardeners know. Just before sunrise and the twilight before sunset, a reality hidden by bright sun and the night is exposed. On "Deadman's Curve," common country themes of fast cars and yearning are revealed by the soul of the dead victim hovering above her lover, tangled in wreck. "The streets in this town run in straight lines/Won't you take me on another ride on the Deadman's Curve?" "Blackeyed Susie" is the gardener's description of planting flowers--a revealing metaphor for love's sacrifice. "I am faithful but I am stained/Black Eyed Susie got me workin' in the rain/In the end I have to plow you under/Black Eyed Susie Why?" In "If Wishes Were Horses" the jilted lover talks to her rival. "I always want a thousand things I know I'll be denied/If wishes were horses, you know that I would ride/And you bring it all back home to me every time we meet/Making it so obvious things I'll never be/Now you're the prettiest and I've become the other one."

Knight still lives and gardens in rural western Massachusetts. "Where I live has everything to do with what I do and how I do it," she says. "There have always been two recurrent themes in my life: Music and farming," Knight explains. "The real work is figuring out who you are."

And now that winter keeps her out of the garden, she tries to figure it out on the road as she tours to support he new record. "I'm just here to uncover the facts about the universe, `cos that's my job," she says. "A lot of this record is about faith and surrender and letting go and being f_____d up... And a lot of these songs came out of accepting what I was seeing, in myself and my hometown."

Cheri Knight refuses to turn from the beauty or the pain. "Perhaps it's pure Yankee stoicism or `90s fatalism. Or perhaps it's the gifted voice of a country gardener from The Northeast Kingdom.