The first single from the Aussie lady's excellent album Everybody's Got Their Something , "Like a Feather" begins with a guitar lick that sounds like a chopped-off, slowed-down version of the bass line from Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin," the funkiest bass line ever created--and this song comes close to creating that level of molasses-drenched funk. Co-producers Justin Stanley (Costa's husband) and Mark Ronson (we'll see much more of him--and a bit of Stanley--later) prove themselves funk classmen on the level of Stone himself, giving the song space to let the rhythm hit 'em, separating the disparate elements into private components and then dropping 'em on the one and three (like James Brown taught everyone to do) and letting the backbeat hit on the two and four, thereby accentuating it, so that you can feel the snare reverberate in your chest. The production and arrangement here have a decidedly old-school feel, but the record remains fresh.Part of that freshness comes from the singer (and the twenty-first century filtered effects on her voice). Costa (who's been releasing records and garning international acclaim since she was nine) brings a sultry slur to her vocals, focusing more on the sound of the words rather than the enunciation of the words themselves. She shows great range, too, but she doesn't show off. She knows when to play it cool, laid back, hard to get, singing in her lower register; and when to rise to ecstatic glee, climbing up to high mezzo-soprano range. Her vocals tease, echoing the push and pull of the music, and ultimately--like the music in toto--deliver.
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