's follows , a dramatically reworked collection of catalog material, by six months. This set is all new, her first such venture since 2005's . The are only seven songs here, but the album clocks in at an hour. Despite the length of the songs, and perhaps because of them, it is easily the most spacious, sparsely recorded offering in her catalog. Its most prominent sounds are 's voice, her acoustic piano, and 's gorgeous drumming -- though other instruments appear (as do some minimal classical orchestrations). With songs centered on winter, engages the natural world and myth -- both Eastern and Western -- and fantasy. It is abstract, without being the least bit difficult to embrace. It commences with "Snowflake," with lead vocals handled by her son . 's piano, crystalline and shimmering in the lower middle register, establishes a harmonic pattern to carry the narrative: the journey of a snowflake from the heavens to a single human being's hand, and in its refrain (sung by ), the equal anticipation of the receiver. "Lake Tahoe" features choir singers and in a arrangement, introducing 's slippery vocal as it relates the tale of a female who drowned in the icy lake and whose spirit now haunts it. 's piano and 's kit are the only instruments. "Misty," the set's longest -- and strangest -- cut, is about a woman's very physical amorous tryst with, bizarrely, a snowman. Despite its unlikely premise, the grain of longing expressed in 's voice -- with bassist underscoring it -- is convincing. Her jazz piano touches on in its vamp. The subject is so possessed by the object of her desire, the morning's soaked but empty sheets propel her to a window ledge to seek her melted lover in the winter landscape. "Wild Man," introduced by the sounds of whipping winds, is one of two uptempo tracks here, an electronically pulse-driven, synth-swept paean to the Tibetan Kangchenjunga Demon, or "Yeti." Assisted by the voice of , its protagonist relates fragments of expedition legends and alleged encounters with the elusive creature. Her subject possesses the gift of wildness itself; she seeks to protect it from the death wish of a world which, through its ignorance, fears it. On "Snowed in at Wheeler Street," is joined in duet by . Together they deliver a compelling tale of would-be lovers encountering one other in various (re)incarnations through time, only to miss connection at the moment of, or just previous to, contact. Tasteful, elastic electronics and 's tom-toms add texture and drama to the frustration in the singers' voices, creating twinned senses: of urgency and frustration. The title track -- the other uptempo number -- is orchestrated by loops, guitars, basses, and organic rhythms that push the irrepressible to narrate 50 words associated with snow in various languages, urgently prodded by . Whether it works as a "song" is an open question. The album closes with "Among Angels," a skeletal ballad populated only by 's syncopated piano and voice. is such a strange pop record, it's all but impossible to find peers. While it shares sheer ambition with , it sounds like neither; 's album is equally startling because its will toward the mysterious and elliptical is balanced by its beguiling accessibility. ~ Thom Jurek