Anna Ash

Singer-songwriter Anna Ash makes songs so eerily nostalgic they feel like classics you loved in a past life. Born and raised in rural Michigan, Ash grew up listening to Pasty Cline and Bonnie Raitt, whose expressive, lovesick voices clawed their way into her being. Ash currently lives in Los Angeles, which in part explains the surreal aftertaste her tunes leave behind, channeling the city's mix of authenticity and make-believe.

One of the deep pleasures of listening to a well-crafted album is the way it becomes inextricable from a mood or a moment, a habit of mind or a time of day. With her new album L.A. Flame, Anna Ash captures those long late afternoons when the sun is low but the heat hasn't yet broken, when you wipe the dirt-muddled sweat from the back of your neck with the condensation on the day's first beer.

Call it country, call it rock'n'roll, call it pulling off the road somewhere between Silver Lake and Bakersfield just to roll a cigarette, kick at the gravel, and brood. The nine songs on her L. A. Flame are sparse and warm, tightly arranged and shrewdly observed. Last year, Ash's cover of Lucinda Williams' Righteously was featured on an episode of Billions. Though Williams is a useful reference point for Ash's sound (see also: Sharon Van Etten, Tift Merritt), the songs on ' L. A. Flame' reveal a singular singer and songwriter at work. For her first single in three years Apologies taps into some fast-talking OG Sheryl Crow shit and swaps the slow and sultry Midwest musings of her previous 'Floodlights' for a sharp-tongued, rock-tinged, turn-on-her-heels moment. Oh, it should be noted that Apologies was recorded in one take and caught the attention of Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas, who shared it on Twitter as his song of the day, which is both cool and smooth.