Album: Mary Gauthier, The Foundling (Proper Records)

"Mama here, Mama gone." An album on a theme of adoption, explored with the hard-bitten demi-keen of one of American folk's fugitive survivors.

It doesn't get much more fugitive than this. It's the story of the search for roots and the consequences of unearthing too much, the music as passing and unstable as the life of the woman who sings it.

Michael Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies produces, which explains the weightless spookiness of the sound. Americana written in steam. Listen to that lonesome whistle blow.