A tidy piece of art. Neat business. Shannon Lay's Living Water is a great album of voice, guitar (in manifold forms), and strings. With these few simple components, Shannon Lay builds a tiny, quiet world. Living Water is also a supremely autumnal album--I would put it with Archer Prewitt's White Sky or something like Gravenhurst's Flashlight Seasons--it has that feel of early sunsets, chilly air, transition. So many of the songs on the album contain surprises: a cache of violin notes here, a burst of electric guitar there, a sudden change in direction. What a sweet voice and what a pleasant diversion. It's nice to get lost in someone else's world for a while.[BUY Living Water]