On Trust the Waves Will Hold You, award-winning rock violinist, singer and songwriter Susan Voelz delivers six enchanting songs that wash through the listener’s consciousness with surges of delight, lyrical eloquence and wisdom. Known best as what the Austin American Statesman signals as “the soul of the sound” of Poi Dog Pondering, she has also

On Trust the Waves Will Hold You, award-winning rock violinist, singer and songwriter Susan Voelz delivers six enchanting songs that wash through the listener’s consciousness with surges of delight, lyrical eloquence and wisdom. Known best as what the Austin American Statesman signals as “the soul of the sound” of Poi Dog Pondering, she has also played with such luminaries as John Mellencamp, Alejandro Escovedo and numerous others alongside composing and recording music for television and theatre and album projects. The disc is drawn from unreleased tracks Voelz recorded with Poi Dog in 2000 and polished up during the recent pandemic lockdown, all of them luscious soundscapes graced by her “masterful and woozy violin” ( LA Weekly) and warm singing. “Oyster” is a full-throttle cruise across a sea of melodic splashes that brims with desire (“All I want is the oyster or everything’). On “If You were Me” a couple trades genders to celebrate the fullness of their love in a prancing pas de deux, while “Step off the Roof” crackles with the challenge of a difficult decision. She wraps it up with a delectably lilting take on the Beatles chestnut “With a Little Help from my Friends.” To adapt a line Voelz sings, waltz with her to this rhapsody. It’s an offer with abundant rewards.