Tom Brosseau's voice — a little shaky, sincere but never saccharine — is an affecting thing that pulls you in the way teacher whispers to capture children's attention. Brosseau's new Posthumous Success, out in June on Fatcat, is a deceptively plainspoken affair of ruminations on the ups and downs of life. His folky-blues acoustic palette owes much to his early life on the wide plains of North Dakota. Like a good book or movie, the unadorned sentimentality of Brosseau's songs creates a terrain of far denser proportions. Brosseau says he's guided by the spirits of the great literary figures of the 20th century, but the soundtracks to silver-screen blockbusters moved him just as much. Thus he's always stood apart as a singer-songwriter, as consumed with mood-altering atmosphere as he is with your deeper lyrical content, a predisposition given blurry focus on Posthumous's intriguing instrumental interludes of spidery banjo lace and hovering voice, jew's harp and silvery strings. It's a fascinating carpet of sound, and subtly so — wholly in tune with Brosseau's North American dreams. Arrive in time to experience Dusseldorf's prepared-piano minimalist Hauschka, a.k.a. Volker Bertelmann.

Thu., May 7, 8 p.m., 2009

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