Consensus seems to be that Basia Bulat has produced a winner with her second album "Heart Of My Own." Certainly the stateside press are talking that way, she is the darling du jour with the east coast bloggers of influence. Basia seems reluctant to disagree, saying bashfully "two albums does not a career make" - which seems to acknowledge something. I've no huge argument with that, except that after repeated repeated listens, it's just not, ya know, moving me that much. Oh dear, am I doomed to be yet again out of step with the hipsters?

What can I say, I like it more with my head than my heart. Basia has a tremendous and impressive voice. To start with I found every listening moment with the record just bedazzled with the voice, and it took a while to see past, to see the forest not the trees. It is distinctive in the way that Joan Armatrading is distinctive. Their voices, Basia's and Joan's have more than a bit in common, that tremulousness, and on first listen in the kitchen that was my reaction. They're by no means the same though, Joan is insinuating and burrowing, Basia is more aloof, more at a steady height.

I swear I could get by on Canadian music, there is such strength in its depth, particularly in this alt / indie / folk end of the spectrum. Basia Bulet is in the modern folk tradition, the kind of folk evocative of afternoons on the porch.

It's gorgeous in many ways and accessible enough for an Apple advert. There is banjo picking that made my other half perk up and say that she would willingly take it up and devote her life if she could ever play like that. A lot of the album trips and trembles along with the same sort of jaunty air that marks out Emmy The Great.

Will I be playing it again? Oh yes, it's lovely in many ways, and I already have played it for friends. I just don't think I'll be nipping round to my mate's house in the car going 'quick quick, you've got to listen to this.'

To talk about the album, opening track 'Go On' has a great military sounding snare drum but more importantly, uncomfortable truth about burdens borne and coming shadows, hidden there under something sounding at first glance quite jolly. This sort of theme carries on in next track 'Run,' hiding tales of sadness under bell-shakers, while 'Sugar and Spice' has pleasing, underlying, gently strummed guitar. 'Heart Of My Own' has that connection to Celtic music and also to Appalachian folk that can often come with modern Canadian folk music. There's pleasing brass on 'If Only You' while the relative quietude of 'I'm Forgetting Everyone' showcases what her voice can do when it's not belting. Truth be told, it's one of my favourites on the album, I could drown in her accent. Elsewhere there's some lovely autoharp, banjo and ukele, all winners with me when they're played like this. If you only listen once, or nede somewhere to start, 'Once More For The Dollhouse' is the one to go for, with such poignancy that it needs to be listened to on a slow Sunday morning.

There's a lot of variety in there, and the bio / press release helps explain this, telling us that nearly all the songs on Heart of My Own were written "while on the road: traveling between cities, crossing the Canadian prairies, searching for a place to stop in the Nevada desert, trailing through the Smoky Mountains, standing in the bright dusk of a summer night in the Yukon". That sounds like some trip.