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Keren Ann strings the songs on her self-titled album together like golden droplets on a gossamer thread. With hollow, echoing, ephemeral vocals, she spins her poetry in an imaginative combination of dreamy reminiscences and ironic cynicism.

It’s All a Lie sets the tempo with a lyrical musicality and honeyed lament that conjures Mazzy Star on a rain-drenched afternoon. Lay Your Head Down is a bit more upbeat, with the moderated go-go intensity of sunny poppy fields, with hand-clap accents, wistful strings and light harmonica (played by K.A. herself), inviting the listener to, “Lay your head down / In my arms / In my arms.” In Your Back is a bitter-sweet reflection with caramel-covered vocals: “Come tell me a story to unload your glorious grief / Where you are the valet of honor and I am the thief . . . .”

Though bathed in lilac, the lyrics unerringly show the barbs of disillusion. Liberty floats along on an other-worldly melody while crooning, “Found myself restless one night / Sipped poison and wine / Dimmed every light and kissed many lips / Fell asleep blameless then woke up old, drunken and missed.” It Ain’t No Crime thumps along to a circus rhythm with 1930s radio-bombshell vocals, a brazen ode to the whore-for-hire in all of us: “I promise kisses / But not for love / It ain’t no crime / That’s what we do.”

Ann—born in Israel Keren Ann Zeidel—produced the album and wrote all of the songs (co-writing the final instrumental track, Caspia, with Bardi Johannsson). In addition to using a dozen different musicians and vocalists, she provides a virtual one-woman band of her own, playing variously: bass, guitar, electric organ, piano and harmonica.

The only drawback to the album as a whole is when it’s taken as a whole. Each one of the cuts—with notable the exception of the last, a bit of pop-electonica fluff—is a chocolate-covered gem. But taken all at once, one gets a sticky palate. Still, most all the tracks will shine when mixed up on shuffle.