Austin transplant Molly Burch boasts experience her muses didn’t: formal training. The singer decamped from her native Los Angeles for the University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she studied jazz vocal performance. The move pays off on LP debut Please Be Mine. Emulating her nonacademic counterparts while updating Fifties pop, she channels Dusty Springfield’s willowy whispers and Patsy Cline’s warble. On kickoff “Downhearted,” Burch follows the lead of disco ball guitar, breathily cooing in one instance and dropping into a contralto in the next, turning again to punctuate the song with staccato quips. It sounds freewheeling but demonstrates incredible discipline. The title track showcases Burch’s ability to tailor songcraft to her innate strengths, creating vocal compositions in a way that highlights a stylistic range touching on a barroom belt and folk croon. That’s the most interesting facet of an album stuffed with wistful, glinting pop – Burch stealing the show so effortlessly with her golden throat. “Fool” embodies this power structure as she manages to forge together all ranges of her nostalgic vocalizations and eclipse them outright with a full-on frontwoman wail. Feats such as that can only be pulled off with pedigree and talent, both of which Molly Burch debuts in spades on Please Be Mine.
This article appears in February 17 • 2017.