Like so many people, Gretchen Peters woke up on Nov. 9, 2016 dazed and wondering how to proceed with her work. It took some time, but her response to the presidential election came in her 2018 album Dancing with the Beast (Scarlet Letter Records). Suffused with regrets, backward glances, and sublimated anger, it’s a gorgeous, often haunting collection of songs that capture a kaleidoscopic array of women going about their lives. In other words, it’s a Gretchen Peters album, but situated along the fault lines that divide past and present and our dreams from our reality.

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