Virginia-based singer-songwriter Vicky Pratt Keating's Blue Apples evokes vocal echoes of Laura Nyro and the Indigo Girls, with lyrics reminiscent of Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin. It's a diverse and confident debut from a woman who is well-known on the East Coast folk club circuit in the US. She draws on many sources for inspiration, and uses often startling imagery, "love walls, heart boxes, soul cages." There are songs about relationships ("I'd like to be in love, never to refuse Buddah in my belly or Vishnu in my shoes") and Sylvia Plath ("Don't the heavies get scary with such insight / Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite").