HALEY HEYNDERICKX Seed of a Seed (Mama Bird) — Haley Heynderickx doesn’t choose the title of her sophomore album lightly. Seed of a Seed expresses a longing for the natural world and a general escape from modern life, be it go-go urban environments or the digital morass everyone is perpetually tethered to thanks to the smartphones they tote around with them. In a fitting synchronicity between sound and sentiment, Heynderickx fills the album with vibrant folk rock that casts back a direct line to the bygone hippie-filled era when braiding flowers into long, indifferently washed hair felt like a revolutionary act. Much as there’s a vintage Neil Young lilt to “Sorry Fahey” and the whole megillah feels like its meant to make Joan Baez fans feel welcome (the precise loveliness of Heynderickx’s vocals does a lot of the work on the latter quality), Heynderickx is soundly contemporary in her art. There’s a Wilco-ish melody cradle the nature ruminations or “Mouth of a Flower” (“The mussel underwater/ The seagull’s plate/ In the tide, running after/ As it takes, and it takes, and it takes”), for instance, and thoughts of Fleet Foxes in their prime come up more than once. The wash of spectral effects that open “Redwoods (Anxious God)” accurately signal a song that is is richly layered, exploring sonic spaces rather than simply settling for a nicely nurtured strum. Heynderickx gives anyone whose looking for it a chiming soundtrack for escape. Enjoy the bright bloom of the following cuts: “Gemini,” “Foxglove,” “Ayan’s Song,” and “Swoop.”

PAUL KELLY Fever Longing Still (Universal) — Paul Kelly is a legend in his homeland of Australia, as demonstrated by a load of hit records, more than a dozen trophies bestowed by the nation’s equivalent of the Grammys, and an Order of Australia medal (roughly akin to being knighted). Stateside, he remains a cult hero at best. Aside from a brief flirtation with the charts in the late nineteen-eighties that included his tunes cropping up in the most unlikely places, Kelly is only known to the fortunate faithful in the U.S. Fever Longing Still, officially tallied as Kelly’s twenty-ninth (!) album, is his latest gift to those true believers. Although he’s dandy as a performer, Kelly’s prime talent is as a songwriter, and his creative compass remains true. “Taught By Experts” has been in Kelly’s repertoire for around thirty years, and it reappears here as a sort of benchmark that proves the new stuff is just as good. Kelly’s default mode is sturdy pop rock, which helps give a base to his artful emotional storytelling, such as the wistful meandering through a wedding photo album in “All Those Smiling Faces.” On this album, he mixes things up a bit. The nineteen-sixties pop of “Hello Melancholy, Hello Joy” isn’t that far from Kelly’s usual vibe, but he definitely puts English on the ball with the soulful disco verve of “Let’s Work It Out in Bed” and the jazzy “Going to the River with Dad.” Kelly’s countrymen have it right. He’s a treasure. In addition to those already mentioned, go deeper with the following cuts: “Houndstooth Dress,” “Double Business Bound” and “Eight Hours Sleep.”