Doug Hoekstra - "Around the Margins" - ***1/2 of 5

Doug Hoekstra, a Nashville-based alternative folkie, aptly titles his latest CD "Around the Margins."

With a breathy, mutter-like voice that sounds like Bob Dylan with a shot of oxygen, singer-guitarist Hoekstra ambles amid a backing crew of accordion, jaw harp, viola, loops, harmonica, ghostly trumpet, mandolin, pianos, organ, country-ish guitars, alt-rock guitars, and more.

Despite such an arsenal, Hoekstra's soundscapes are subtle rather than jolting, leaving him room to play his trump card:  a novelist's eye that's part Southern gothic writer, part film noir auteur, part Garrison Keilor's wistful "Prairie Home Companion."

And so Hoekstra uses his novelist's touch to reflect upon crime and punishment, the mysteries of death, Martin Luther King's stay in that Birmingham jail, the odd thrill that comes from being a stranger in a strange land ("Stranger's Eyes"), and the now-hazy days of childhood ("A circus game when I was a child had me spun through the air by the hands of guile," he sings on "The Life We Love").

As Hoekstra knows and reveals, life can be more interesting around the margins.

(Rick Deyampert)

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