I just recieved in the mail my pre-ordered copy of my friend Kristn Sweetland's new cd, "Own Sweet Time". Apparently I'm the first to buy her brand new cd, which will be officially released on October 30th - so this my first advance copy of a cd! Anyways, I'm listening to it right now and I'm loving it - it's very different from her previous album, "Root, Heart & Crown", which was a little more lush and rootsy. This one's a little more on the electric side (there's a great pic her with her Gretsch in the liner notes!) than her previous album, but this one also has a slightly celtic flair to a few of the songs ("Three Pipe Night", "The Compass Rose" in particular) with the addition of the hurdy gurdy and pennywhistle. Btw, there's a Blue Rodeo connection - Anne Lindsay plays fiddle on her album once again! Also appearing on the album are Suzie Vinnick, Stephen Fearing, and Ken Whiteley (who also produces her album as he did on "Root, Heart & Crown") Her liner notes, just as they did on the last album, provide some incredible insights as to the inspiration behind her songs, including locking herself out of her car in Saskatchewan one day and then the very next day getting her car stuck in some sinking sand near some train tracks, trying to dig her car out and instead cracking out a bottle of whiskey and writing a song about it ("Gone Gone Gone") - among other great stories that inspired her writing!
Highly recommended 
Check her out:
www.kristinsweetland.com
~ ...and all the demons are saints, and the saints I'll never trust...~ Blue Rodeo - "Graveyard"
~...Had a dream where everybody looked like someone else, and the farthest I could get from was the closest to myself...~ Men Without Hats - "Sideways"