Jane Lui Says Hello With Goodnight Company

Hong Kong-born, US-raised singer-songwriter Jane Lui is back with her self-released third album Goodnight Company and it is as enjoyable as it is unpredictable and challenging.

Lui’s breathy, vulnerable soprano and well-honed command of melody aren’t the kind of thing that one usually thinks of as challenging, but she challenges because she is the kind of musician who never seems to sit still. She’s always moving in the opposite direction from your musical expectations. But listeners willing to abandon their expectations entirely and just follow her lead will be rewarded.

You can get a handle on her mix of eccentric R&B and folk pop fairly quickly on the first and title track “Goodnight Company.” But, once you do, she throws in a Dixieland jazz interlude at the end just to make sure you are paying attention.

The album is a bit like the soundtrack for a half-improvised one-woman show, staged in a barn on a balmy summer evening with the full moon for a spotlight and a sequencer for an orchestra. That is to say, it’s strangely enchanting and oddly hard to forget.

Musical theater is a strong and fertile influence here, but so are country music and jazz. The troubled relationship post mortem “Illusionist Boy” is a genuine back-porch ballad, but it is followed by the equally poignant but decidedly more indoorsy piano torch song “Southern Winds.”

You never quite know what’s coming next, but the abrupt shifts in genre do even out as the album goes on, finally mellowing into the minimal and completely acoustic “Last Rose of Summer.” It’s a perfect and perfectly haunting tune to end on, and a big part of why you may well want to go back to the beginning of Goodnight Company and listen to that first quirky-yet-carefully-crafted track right away.

CD or free download available from Janelui.com