Introducing Karl Blau

The playfully titled Introducing recasts alt-folkie Karl Blau as a bejeweled country crooner. A gorgeous exercise covering left-field classics by artists like Townes Van Zandt (“If I Needed You”) and Tom T. Hall (“That’s How I Got To Memphis”), the album presents a vision of country more in tune with indie Americana than Nashville, leaning on plush, mellow arrangements and Blau’s beery baritone, which delivers the songs’ lovelorn lyrics with the slightest of winks.