On 'Found Light,' Laura Veirs documents newfound freedom with attentive awe

There is a hyper-alert, naturalistic sensuality to the 12th album by Portland songwriter Laura Veirs. A new lover has "pomegranate fingertips"; she's "a burning leaf" stirred by the latent light of stars and buffeted by the distant swirl of the planets; the smell of Eucalyptus trees on the street in California fling her back to her youth, "way before I knew ya."

The "ya" is, presumably, Veirs' ex-husband, producer Tucker Martine, whom she divorced nearly three years ago. He worked on all of her previous records, right down to selecting the songs to work on and sculpting the sound. Back then, Veirs told host Marc Maron in, she "didn't really care" about what material they would work on. For her first album as a newly single woman, though, she did: "It was the first time I was really asking myself, 'What do I want this music to vibrates with that sense of potential, and finds Veirs, 48, curiously surveying the balance between the bitter weight of experience and the rewards that might come from remaining attuned to wonder.