The Inara George/Van Dyke Parks partnership on An Invitation is a wonderful symbiosis, an amphibian that treads through two almost opposing elements, one stark and timid, the other well-crafted and delicate, though I’m not always sure which is which. The latter is usually the musical arrangement by Van Dyke Parks, so after listening to the opening number, “Overture,” with its instrumental loveliness pouring out all over the place, I nearly wrote something stupid like “this album is better than Smile!” Well, it’s not: but with its lush yet spare strings and woodwinds, it definitely bests Stephen Sondheim (Sweeney Todd, slash your throat out!).

It’s to Van Dyke Parks’ credit that he can arrange such sonorous and American music without sounding like an incidental tune from Oklahoma. But he’s obviously been helped by the fortified framework Inara’s given him to build from. Van Dyke Parks is an orchestrator of the most lovingly dogged kind, sticking his notes daintily but steadfastly to the tunes as Inara wrote them. And while they are not precious, the songs definitely are charming, the accents and crescendos cleverly woven around her meandering, slightly jazzy vocals, which bring to mind Julie London’s phrasing and Regina Spektor’s throaty beauty.
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