The story begins at nightly open mics in Chicago where rising folk luminary, Lissie Maurus, cut her teeth. Getting older, she headed west to Colorado, but grew tired of the thin music scene. Pulling up stakes again, she found inspiration among the broad, knotty oaks in the artist community of Ojai, Calif. "I wanted to be near Los Angeles and my musician friends who helped me get started," she says. "I just couldn't see a career in music happening in Colorado and Ojai is close enough to L.A. without the craziness and congestion of L.A."

On her debut EP, Why You Runnin', Maurus settles in with a rambling four-piece that is acoustic, strummy and ignited by her glowing, smoky vocals. She sings with her heart on her sleeve and holds the foreground. She's versatile, sounding confident whether nakedly crooning with a piano on "Oh, Mississippi" or romping with the percussive, playful rhythms and pecking guitar in "Little Lovin'."

Maurus' voice is undeniably the centerpiece. Her tone has widespread appeal, showing a flashy country gal and a competent bedroom vocalist. Her lyrics lustfully pine with a Southern affectation as Maurus seeks those bowing octaves, flexing dichotomous sorrow and joy. She focuses on traditional country plots of love and loss, framed in the customary verse/chorus structure. "For me, there are really three kinds of musicians: melody-, rhythm- and lyrical-based," Maurus explains. "I'm melody-centered; I love a great, catchy melody. It's what I work my hardest on."

Maurus has worked with Ed Harcourt in England, collaborated with Band of Horses and toured with Badly Drawn Boy and others. A wonderful conversationalist, she's is easy to get along with, genuine and her interest in others comes with rewards. "I met people who got me where I am today through other people," she says. "I met Ed Harcourt through a mutual friend who told [Harcourt] about my music. Ed liked my sound and expressed an interest working together. Soon, I found myself in London writing 'Oh Mississippi' with Ed. The song came surprisingly quickly." Maurus is new to the industry, but it works in her favor as she has a lot of new ideas and ways about approaching songwriting. She's open to different methods and believes that working with other artists cultivates creativity. "I love to collaborate and play with musicians when I perform and practice - I prefer it," Maurus says. "There's something organic, unexplainable, that happens when you play with people that take you out of your comfort zone. Exciting new things happen."

Artists have preferences and rituals in their songwriting process and everyone has a different comfort zone. Maurus' songs sprout from simple, rough ideas. "I usually start with a progression, chords or whatever on the guitar. I'll bring that rough song to the band and we'll play around with different melodies based around that progression," she says. "From there, we start thinking about the kind of song it sounds like and that's when it really takes shape." Maurus has an interesting way of tackling lyrics. While some musicians write lyrics in union with the melody or begin with the poetry first (think Damien Jurado), they are an afterthought for Maurus. Her lyrics come from murmurs and humming sounds into the microphone until something organically develops. "I'll sit at the piano and replay the progression while murmuring nonsense until ideas emerge and that's how the song becomes, say, a love song," she says. "It hasn't ever been, like, for this next song I'm going to write a soulful ballad. It's an unintentional process and it works best for us this way."

This rather haphazard process is masked by countless hours of editing and tinkering. As a result, her debut EP is clean and well-organized. The songs indeed run a gamut of overlapping genres, but the instrumentation grounds the record with solidarity. The result echoes with the kind of dedication and attention to detail one would expect to go into a critically praised debut. In five songs, the band modestly explores rock, R&B, soul and country, while lacing a sophisticated cafe-singer element throughout. "I'll be recording early 2010 and hopefully have something out later in the year," she says. "It feels like it's going to be an exciting year for sure." It's no surprise Ray LaMontagne and City and Colour asked for her support on their respective 2009 and 2010 tours.

http://www.myspace.com/lissiemusic

Photographer: Andrew Calder