Jessi Robertson's DIY aesthetic comes across not only in the home-recording bareness of her singer/songwriter guitar tunes, but in the honesty and openness of her lyrics. She sings like she’s still in her bedroom, and that’s refreshing rather than too raw – she’s here simply to play, and is not at all shy about it.

This sense of “doin’ it for the music” extends to the Brooklyn collective Local Correspondents (of which she is a co-founder), a meetup group for new artists that organizes weekly shows and events.

When performing herself, her determined strums are accompanied by a tell-all voice that alternates between lovely and thoughtful to angry and growling. Her flourishes and fills complete the mix, so that her tracks tell emotional stories backed by serious pipes. Lyrics speak of lessons learned, and though many performers tend to talk about that age old conundrum love, she’s not afraid of exposing herself when doing so.

Bringing strong role models like PJ Harvey and Melissa Etheridge to mind, Robertson beckons you to come for the voice and stay for the raw emotion. When she sings “I owe you a scratch or two but I’m not keeping score/ I just wanna know that I hurt you more” on “Sharpening the Knives,” the scary-meets-pretty quality of these lines display the fact that Robertson is here to do more than just sound pretty.

- Liz Levine, Knocks From the Underground