Last Monday's show at the World Cafe Live began a bit on the slow side as Ferras (MySpace) and his keyboard took the stage. The twenty-five year-old singer-songwriter, whose debut album, Aliens & Rainbows, dropped yesterday, has a lot of raw talent. What he doesn't really have is songwriting ability. Ferras sounds like a high school theatre nerd with a guitar. (Seriously, when you're trying to get major label play, you really shouldn't play music that sounds like you listened to the original soundtrack of Pippin one too many times.) It's not that Ferras was bad; it's just that I had no qualms about paying more attention to my mediocre salmon than I paid to the stage while he was playing.

Fortunately, Chris Stills (MySpace) was next up onstage to rescue all of us from our boredom. If his last name sounds familiar to you, it should: Stills, son of Stephen Stills (the "S" in CSNY) and French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, is an artist with an impressive musical pedigree. But he's not just a son of privilege with a record contract to accompany his parents' reputations: he's a talented, entertaining performer whose good looks don't distract from the fact that he's one helluva songwriter and musician. You may not have heard his music yet, but believe me, you will. (For a primer, check out the video from his performance that we posted last week.)

After Stills' rockin' set (so rockin', in fact, that he completely sold out of the CDs he brought with him), it was time for A Fine Frenzy (MySpace) to take the stage. I'm not entirely sure if "A Fine Frenzy" is just Alison Sudol's stage name or it's the name of her band (publicists and Wikipedia lead us to believe the former, but onstage, Sudol thanks the audience and proclaims "We're A Fine Frenzy"), but at the very least, it's a perfect description of the young singer-songwriter: absolutely gorgeous, both physically and musically, performing with the kind of intense energy that makes you want to keep your eyes glued to the stage at all costs.

The piano isn't usually considered a sexy instrument (unless you've got a scantily-clad woman sitting atop it and singing a torch song), but somehow, Sudol makes it one. As she sways with her music, contracting from the pelvis toward the piano while singing in her husky, beautiful voice into the microphone beside her, it's obvious to all watching that she has a very special connection with her music. It's not at all dirty, but it may make you want a cigarette after her set.

She doesn't play with the anger of Ani DiFranco or the bitterness of Tori Amos, and that's probably because life hasn't been all that hard for Sudol. In saying that, I don't mean to disparage her: her music comes from a very real, emotional place—nothing about it seems trivial or light or fluffy—but you won't feel as emotionally drained at the end of the show as you would if you were seeing Ani or Tori. Critics tend to call A Fine Frenzy's music "haunting," but that's not because it's especially sad or melancholy; it's because she plays the kind of music that will stick with you, perhaps even follow you around, for several days (or indeed, weeks!) after you hear it. Especially if you're hearing it live. Or maybe the issue there is seeing, not hearing: after you see Alison Sudol perform, you'll be thinking about the way she plays the piano for a long, long time.