Music: Singing Outside The Box

Danielle Howle is a singer-songwriter for those who cringe at the thought of listening to one more doe-eyed gal (or guy) with a guitar. The South Carolinian, a lean and wiry guitarist who often sports ratty pigtails onstage, free-associates between songs in one of those impossible Southern drawls you'd attribute to a Eudora Welty character: "I had two '70s Camaros. They was sweet--eight cylinders. Those things can git up and stomp!" On her new record, "Skorborealis," she's just as entertaining when singing about "Big Puffy Girl Handwriting" or "Karaoke": "It brought us together, and now it's tearing us apart/ I've always loved you sugar, but that machine has got your heart."

The 33-year-old is a respected oddball on the folk and punk fringe and a celebrated curiosity in the world beyond. Howle's received accolades in The New York Times, opened for Bob Dylan and been called a "melodic, nimble being" by Ani DiFranco. But the eccentric singer still prefers to fly under the radar. She's signed to the Southern indie label Daemon Records and sells most of her albums via Daniellehowle.com. On her new CD she balances mainstream accessibility and small-venue sentimentality. Howle sounds as soothing as Karen Carpenter, as graceful as k. d. lang and as Saturday-night worn as Patsy Cline. The songs, played by her band the Tantrums, vary from sad-sack country to off-kilter pop to beer-chugging rock. She even dabbles in a little jazz. "Once this guy got all mad at me and said, 'Why can't you just make a record where all the songs go together?' " says Howle. "I said, 'They do, Mister, but not everything's a Pink Floyd album'."

© 2002