Radio Quiet, Cris Williamson and Tret Fure's third duo album, following the intimate Between the Covers, is a far less personal collection. Although it does have its direct songs, notably Fure's plainspoken declaration of love Everyone to Me and her rollicking Tomboy Girl, as well as Williamson's celebration of female lawnmowing (!), John Deere, those are the straightforward exceptions on an album more characterized by the title song, apparently a metaphor for long-distance communication, and Moon Dust, a tale of a man, a woman, and some edible lunar material that must be a parable for something, though it isn't clear what. (Williamson later wrote that it was "Based on a true story by Dava Sobel.") With six tracks by the two together, four by Fure, and three by Williamson, this is more of a duo effort than simply a joint album, as Between the Covers was. But while the previous album was heavy with romantic import, this one finds the two songwriters looking far afield, to The Coast or, in DelRae, the "tents of the Bedouin," and often writing in the third person. One often gets the sense that there is a story behind the lyrics, and that what is being sung offers only its residue. (Liferaft, for example, is full of the titles of Joseph Conrad novels: "She used to be a -Secret Sharer/She wore the -Heart of Darkness on her sleeve," etc.) In any case, the songs are often hard to follow. Happily, whatever the words mean, the music is effective, an evolved folk-rock sound with world music rhythms and powerful singing from the two vocalists, especially when they are harmonizing together. As a result, while Radio Quiet is not Williamson and Fure's most affecting album, it is their best sounding one. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

1		Radio Quiet
2		On the Line
3		Keeper of the Light
4		Delrae
5		Everyone to Me
6		Moondust
7		Tomboy Girl
8		Life Raft
9		John Deere
10		The Coast
11		Nighthawks
12		Choices
13		Hunter Gatherers

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