If you find the Brand New Heavies sound too retro and Portishead too frigid, check out Gretchen Lieberum. Her sultry '70s Soul-Jazz voice fronts subdued, moody jazz that forgoes both the frost and frivolity in favor of straight-ahead emotion. Lieberum comes across like Carmel fronting Morcheeba. Sade's continued silence has left a vacuum that this LA based singer could fill.
