This weekend we inaugurate an occasional series called Top of the Pile, although really it should be something more like "(Often Unsolicited) Submission Pile Death Match." But that is a lot of words for a headline. The idea is we get a lot of discs in the mail, and occasionally we find time to listen to them. A little less frequently, we have the time to write about them. And a one, and a two...

Clawing its way to the top of the pile -- and surviving our rigorous and scientific "Do we give a crap?" test -- this weekend is Liz Durrett's Husk on Warm Records, which streeted last January. The songs are like a slow morphine drip of quietly picked electric guitar, breathy double-tracked vocals and distant organ. Every deliberate line of the first two cuts ("Vine" and "Husk") in particular delivers a dose of almost unbearable poignancy.

Durrett's press materials are littered with Cat Power comparisons, and we'll play along. Think Cat Power's Covers record (although these are not covers) or think a less damaged-sounding Palace Brothers with a woman vocalist and a palpable swing rather than Oldham's gothic Appalachian creak. Husk, a collection of tunes penned between 1993 and 1996, is the epitome of Sunday morning coffee drinking music. Durrett expects to issue Mezzanine, a record of more recent work, Jan. 24. You can download a live version of the title track as well as a cover of Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" here. Incidentally, Durrett is the niece of Vic Chesnutt.