Featuring a smoking hot band which includes Dave Liebman on soprano and tenor saxes plus Tom Harrell on trumpet and flugelhorn, this fourth studio recording by the Chicago-based vocalist, composer and bandleader Erin McDougald is infused with a sense of risk-taking that grips you from start to finish. Ranging from the classic song of the Great Depression, ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’, reimagined as a slinky cha-cha, and the adroit metrical shifts of ‘Midnight Sun’ (great work here by Liebman and vibist Mark Sherman), to the deeply swinging ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’ in which the luxuriant arrangement is finally stripped down to just bass and vocal, and the chorinho-inspired take on ‘Unusual Way’ (from the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Nine), McDougald and her musicians take you on an exhilarating voyage of discovery. The vocalist's recasting of the traditional song ‘The Parting Glass’ as a hard-driving modal workout best illustrates her flair for scrambling musical categories in rich and fascinating ways.