Mabey's Hope-Infused Reality Inspires

Stephanie Mabey's "hope-infused reality" has been making me smile for two years now. From her initial three offerings released under the name Stephanie Smith to her new acoustic preview EP, she has been the Voice most played while I kick around the house, do chores or run errands. Her videos have been a frequent destination on my YouTube wanderings.

Mabey is an LDS indie-folkie who recently married and moved to Arizona, but is actually a transplanted Utahn. She recorded her knock-out debut album Change when she was 17, stunning folks with her introspection, crisp story-telling, and honest lyrics. Tell Me and the brilliant Waves followed.

Tunes like October, Another Ticket (inspired by a job ticketing merchandise at Target) and Fragile Sometimes are at once vulnerable and lovely. You can hear all of them on the listen tab at stephaniemabey.com. There are some terrific Stephanie Smith downloads still available at ldsmusicworld.com. Check out Let Me Know and Little Bit Scared.

Naturally, all of Stephanie's Mabey's material is available on iTunes. If you're looking for her first three albums, make sure you look up the right Stephanie Smith. There is another artist with the same name.

And if you're up for something completely different, watch If I Were a Zombie, Mabey's video poke at the Twilight movie franchise, "because vampires are getting way too much love these days."

Over the past few months, Mabey has been on a campaign to raise enough funds through sales of her EP to flesh out those songs and more for a fourth album. The way she's structured her fund-raising pitch is both novel and interactive. For $50 she'll let you download her EP, send you her new album, and list you in her liner notes; $750 will get you a house concert; and $1,000 will get you your own theme song to use as a voice-mail greeting, ring-tone or "just to hum when you're feeling down."

But enough gushing already. The bottom line is Stephanie Mabey's music rewards those who can truly appreciate honest, sensitive, intelligent music.

In the spare and beautiful Another Ticket, she says, "I sing out. like I've made it." We can only hope she does.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter @stephaniemabey.