MaMuse

There’s a gem-like quality to MaMuse’s music. Everything fits together just right. Individually the elements are simple: two-part harmonies; minimal instrumentation; short, folkish song-poems. But when these two young Chico women—Karisha Longaker and Sarah Nutting—put those elements together, the result is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. There’s so much silence and space in these songs, such delicacy of feeling, timing and arrangement, that performing them live is a kind of high-wire act: one mistake and it’s over. Thing is, they don’t make mistakes, which is why their performances are so delightful. This recording does full justice to those performances and is exactly what the duo’s fans would expect: beautifully crafted songs of celebration and wonder performed brilliantly. And so Chico, where we’re urged to “lean into the heat/ in a town where the creeks are lazy/ and the salmon swim upstream.” I can’t imagine a better album to play on a springtime morning. It’s guaranteed to brighten your day.