Flawed Beauty

If you want to know what Robin Bacior sounds like, and I mean really sounds like, listen to her 2013 EP I Left You, Still In Love (available for free until Feb. 25 at robinbacior.bandcamp.com). The album was recorded in a one-day session at Headgear Studios in Brooklyn, New York. If you listen closely to “Women Speak,” you will hear a guitar string snapping. At first, Bacior thought she had ruined the track, but the recording grew on her, the flaws creating a sense of intimacy. “It’s a direct reflection of our live show,” Bacior says. “I like when I hear something and I feel like I’m in the room with someone.”

Bacior recently relocated to Portland from Brooklyn, where her cellist Dan Bindschedler remains. Despite the distance, the pair remains close, exchanging letters and emails about songs. Then they pick a place on one of the coasts where they meet for “concentrated practices,” basically isolating themselves and holing away for long weekends. “It works really well,” Bacior says. “We’re used to each other’s style. We can guess where the other one is going to go.”

And it does work well. Bacior’s voice is like a melding of Ani DiFranco and Zooey Deschanel, and when paired with the cello, or the piano for that matter, it transcends into something hauntingly, but humbly, beautiful. As an artist with intrinsic musical talent, Bacior shoud push her vocals past her comfort zone in the future because it could be something truly sublime. That may happen sooner rather than later — she’s already itching to record again.

Bacior won’t be the only talented female vocalist that night; Hot Milk will be opening. Led by Rebecca Conner’s smoky, smooth voice, the jazz-inspired Hot Milk is one of Eugene’s rising talents. Listen for their highly danceable version of The Jungle Book’s “I Wanna Be Like You.” Conner, who studies jazz at LCC, says the band hopes to record an album soon, but first they have to raise money via Kickstarter.

Robin Bacior, Hot Milk and The Great Hiatum play 9:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 23, at Sam Bond’s; $5.