PRETTY GIRLS DON’T JUST TALK TO ME is the fourth & perhaps most comprehensive record from Jeff Harms: its eleven songs gather to be just over thirty minutes long, but the economy of its running time belies the genre-spanning complexity, the depth presented in a collection that is driven by the instinct to entertain not just as a musician, but as a storyteller. One of the hallmarks of Harms’ sound is the intricate warmness of the vocals. There is always a way of melancholy, a rueful sweetness. The Jeff Harms Singers (Dan Mohr, Gillian Lisée, & also-producer Sam Wagster), sing together on Empty Fire, a track that, in its sharply elegant transitions from voice to voice, helps us to remember how beautiful the fingerprint is, the small differences in the way that each singer delivers their verse, & how strong is the unison finally when it all arches together again. It’s as if the Zombies recruited a girl & decided to put on a Sondheim play at a luau in 1973. This is an album of duets. They are all fantastic. Pretty girls don’t just talk to Jeff Harms. They sing with him: Nora O’Connor (The Decemberists, Andrew Bird), Angela James, Rachel Ries, Gillian Lisée (Fruit Bats) are very real human treasures. Sam Wagster (Fruit Bats) produced, combining the spirited drumming of Adam Vida (US Maple) with Ben Boye’s piano. Boye (Bonnie Prince Billy) plays piano with an effortless charm that the lonely old ghost of Erik Satie would doubtlessly appreciate. Vida could drum the paint off an 18th century credenza and not leave a mark. At the heart of the album is Don’t Open the Door for Anybody. A new wave drum machine and Wagster’s driving guitar riff back Lisée’s solo vocal performance. It’s the counterpart to Harms’ solo voice and piano on Flood, at the very end. The Jeff Harms Singers return, singing Crosby-Stills-and-Nash-style on two other tracks (Whatever and The Baron). Traditional duets with Ries, O’Connor and James -- Already Written, and Leaves in Love -- make up most of the rest of the album. …A toddler trapped in a confined space, a doomed plane, a lover that resembles Renée Maria Falconetti, a honeymoon next to a waterfall. This music, above all else, operates in service of stories of people in transition, people at the cusp of newness: friends & travelers encountering the strange wildness of their shared world. It is a record that you are invited to inhabit with your own personal dynamics. It is, like all of Harms’ work, a scafolding for new mythologies. If you have found suddenly that in the listening of this record, a forgotten-but-absolutely-special day in your own life has involuntarily risen up & hovered about & made itself known to you now, after all this time: this would not come as a surprise, not at all. Harms describes the record as a ‘Part Two’ to his last album, Hesaidshesaidthatswhatshesaid. Hesaid was produced by LeRoy Bach, formerly of Wilco, and featured Wagster on guitar, David Hilliard (David Byrne) on drums, and three songs with Nora O’Connor, including her solo track Tiny House. Personnel Adam Vida Drums Ben Boye Piano Jeff Harms Vocals, Guitar Gillian Lisée Vocals, Hand Percussion Dan Mohr Vocals, Piano Rachel Ries, Angela James, Nora O'Connor Vocals Sam Wagster Guitar, pedal steel, bass