Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings

Two decades after the release of Tigerlily, her 1995 solo debut, Natalie Merchant reconfigures the songs that made that album a smash, creating a decidedly different but equally remarkable collection. Like Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, Paradise Is There documents the effects of time—Merchant’s voice has intensified with age, and she inhabits the material with intimate familiarity. Experience has also changed her approach—the airy arrangement of “Wonder” and the extended take on “The Letter” (now shorn of its lilting piano) are welcome reinventions.