Childlike and slightly disturbed drawings of Dawson talking to assorted monsters, robots, ghosts, and prehistoric animals appear on the cover of her fifth solo outing, giving people a good clue as to what’s inside. These simple melodies imprint themselves on your brain after a single listen as her speedy, girlish, half-talking, half-singing delivery washes over you in a free-flowing jumble of disjointed images that almost make you woozy. “My Mom” addresses the germs infecting her dying mom’s body and somehow manages to be playful and achingly poignant. Similarly, on “Underground,” Dawson muses about lost love, unwed motherhood, and mortality: I tattoo instructions on my ass that say don’t ever put this body in a casket/Burn it and put the ashes in a basket/And throw them into Puget Sound/I don’t ever want to be underground. The effect is touching, humorous, and liberating. Her unique style is slightly amateurish, but there’s a fierce intelligence working behind the naive facade. If you like witty wordplay and undisguised emotion served up baby-naked and starry-eyed, this one’s for you.
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