Bitch is an evocative name, but she sounds pretty tender on her first proper solo record, Make This/Break This. The dreadlocked, six-foot singer-violinist last graced the city as half of Bitch & Animal, a bubbly grrrl-power duo signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. Bitch remains unplugged on this affair, but it’s a more melancholy outing, filled with scenes of heartbreak, disappointment, and yearning. Says Bitch: “This album came to me in a moment of inspiration that led me to travel far away from my own reality and crack open my guts and see what was there.”

This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2007.