She calls herself a singer-songwriter, but as soon as Rebecca Loebe leans into the first notes of Give Up Your Ghosts, her first release for Blue Corn Music (Feb. 8, 2019), that definition starts to seem woefully inadequate.

Loebe is not just another talent. She’s a talent — a sophisticated, mature writer with a relevant point of view and an assured, nuanced voice that’s both elegant and earthy, powerful and delicate, with a range and depth she hints at more than flashes. When the moment’s right, however, she’ll glide up a scale like Norah Jones, or drop right into a crag in Fiona Apple’s sidewalk.

But timing and delivery alone don’t make an artist. There’s got to be substance as well, and Loebe fearlessly probes the rawest corners of her psyche to find it. “There's a lot of me talking to myself,” she says. “I’m writing a lot of empowerment jams these days, and I think it's because it's what I need. I've written albums full of what I needed to say, but this album is full of songs I need to hear.”

And now she’s on a guerrilla mission to share messages others need to hear as well. “I like to write catchy songs about topics that are meaningful to me, but use fun hooks to put words in people's mouths,” Loebe admits. “My favorite thing is to get people singing along before they even realize they're singing about women's equality or their own self-worth.”

Inventively marrying elements of folk, pop, rock, blues and jazz, Loebe takes vocal left turns when you think she’ll go right, or shifts from breezy to profound in a single phrase. And each surprising twist makes her music that much more entrancing.