Of Afro-Caribbean heritage, Kaia Kater grew up in Quebec, the child of parents engaged with the Canadian folk revival. Drawn in particular to Appalachian music, young Kaia proved to be a gifted banjo picker. She pursued her musical education in West Virginia, learning from both older and younger tradition carriers while finding new ways to interpret and present antique sounds. I reviewed her previous release, Sorrow Bound, in this space on 15 August 2015.

Nine Pin -- the title denotes a square-dance move; it's also the title of a Kater song -- is both more and less of the same. The immediately obvious difference is in the songwriting. Whereas the original material on the earlier album derives from the ostensible influences of writers like Jean Ritchie, Ola Belle Reed and Gillian Welch, this time the sources are literary, more in the vein of modern poetry than folksong lyrics. One is not always sure what one is hearing, since precise meanings often remain elusive even as they tug at the imagination and command the attention.

Moody and understated, the songs afford the impression of an internal monologue (as of course much of formal poetry does) that the listener is overhearing. The themes vary from the personal to the political, while the mountain banjo's drone is worked to powerful effect, augmented by the muted sounds of trumpet, flugelhorn, electric guitar and Moog. The arrangements exude a beguiling naturalness, complex in their way but never betraying an esthetic grasp that is out of reach. It took me several listenings, in fact, fully to appreciate what is going on inside them. The more one listens, the more one hears.

The four traditional numbers (two songs, two instrumentals) are all stand-outs, set in distinctive arrangements and sung in Kater's unusual lower register. The slowed-down "Little Pink" is far removed from the typical rowdy reading, and "White" (the Shaker hymn often called "Long Time Traveling Here Below") is extraordinarily affecting, probably all the more so for the perhaps deceptively straightforward reading. I don't know when I've heard a more inviting "Hangman's Reel," however odd that adjective sounds in front of so dark a title.

Kaia Kater, whose talents are not ordinary ones, gives the clear impression of being an artist we're all going to be hearing a lot more about.