There’s something in the frustration opening this track that feels incredibly rare nowadays — a break from the usual wound-in-hindsight poet. Plenty of songwriters pen cathartic cuts (“Ballad in Plain D” comes first to mind), but catharsis in real time, without affording oneself such wit of the staircase, is rare. Cillie Barnes’ “Facework,” which was recorded with Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott in Omaha, opens her new EP out next month.
