Butterfly Boucher

ROCK/POP

What is it with Australian hippies taking their babies to the outback and raising them in nomadic family bands? Whatever it is, it works. First Kasey Chambers traded the Nullarbor Plain for platinum records; now Butterfly Boucher turns years of wandering in a trailer with her parents and six sisters into one transcendent pop song. "Another White Dash," from Flutterby (A&M), is three minutes of full-band glory, a drum-driven celebration of being on the road and going somewhere, anywhere. Guitars hurtle past like blurred billboards; buried in the mix, a piano glimmers like flecks of glass that are as harmless as glitter. Aside from a ribbon of cello, Boucher plays it all. And when the music makes a sudden stop, the velocity pitches her voice into the sky. Elsewhere, her ideas outpace their execution. "I Can't Make Me" merely tongues the gap between the first blurted "I love you" and its affirmation. "A Walk Outside" wonders, "Which came first: the love or the love song?" without the sweat of either. If Boucher pays attention to the world outside her window, the rigors and romance of touring will take her further than rhetorical love songs.

Sat., July 31, 7:30 p.m., with Sarah McLachlan, $45-$65, Wachovia Center, 3601 S. Broad St., 215-336-3600.

—M.J. Fine

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