Off the Beaten Pathos

Singer-songwriter Shelley Short comes on like a lo-fi Neko Case – perhaps more intimate and delicate than her fellow Pacific Northwesterner – but with no less pathos in her pretty voice. When she sings, “By the time I go to pieces/You’ll be gone,” in the song “Like Anything, It’s Small,” Short announces her fragility soft and clear.

Short, who performs Saturday, May 23, at Trunk Space, 1506 Grand Avenue, hails from (where else?) Portland, Oregon. She fled there in 2004 for a brief stay in Chicago, where she let that city’s bastard-country vibe inform her otherwise pop-folk sound. She then left for Los Angeles to record her most recent album, the highly praised Water for the Day, which features appearances by indie-pop luminaries such as Rachel Blumberg (Decemberists, M Ward) on drums and Tiffany Kowalski (Bright Eyes) on violin.