- Self-titled albums always catch my attention. I always wonder, why this one? Is this some kind of definitive statement that you would choose to tie your performing name to it, now and forever?

At its worst it can indicate a complete lack of imagination, but every now and then it turns out that everything I was thinking might be realised by such a record, actually is.

Laura Jean has long been one of my favourite, quiet achievers in Australian music. Her 2011 album, A Fool Who’ll… wasn’t in-and-of-itself even that quiet: a wailing and cleverly orchestrated folk-rocker with astute guest contributions. It was quiet in the sense that it got nothing like the attention it deserved, but it was one of the best records of the year.

Her latest, self-titled album is more genuinely introspective. Full of simple but elegantly crafted observations, one of which, its second cut, How Will I Know When I’m Home?, neatly contextualises the record. An evocation of a domestic life and work: “Days can be filled so easily / With small tasks and pottering / People ask me what I do / I guess now, I look after you.” Jean invests it with both a sadness and simple resolve. Picking herself up she declares, wistfully: “I still have some passion and some dreams / But for now music’s just my hobby / I just want us to be happy.” I don’t know exactly how true the lyrics are, but the record makes them feel true: this simple folk-music, the kind of thing that can be achieved in spare moments, bereft of flights of fancy, offering instead an honesty and clarity.

For this kind of music the word honest is usually appended by the adjective brutal. For the most part Laura Jean isn’t being brutal here, unless you find the vicissitudes of everyday life brutal. Perhaps the Oscar Wilde-esque straight-shooting of advance single Don’t Marry The One You Love and its sober assessment of passion is going to be a little devastating to incurable romantics.

It isn’t all a record of the relentlessly mundane: a Kelpie dog, which sometimes appears to be Jean’s and sometimes a fantasy, is obviously a favourite and makes many appearances, occasioning some of the deepest and most moving reflections. On When I First Brought Him Home, the line “The Kelpie doesn’t run in circles any more / I taught him how to fetch a ball / I hope he never figures it out / I hope he never understands / That his job has no purpose / That his life has no meaning / That we are all falling asleep, watching each other dream” reiterates that same sense of making do, although the sadness may be just that little bit more overwhelming. Maybe it is just a little brutal.

PJ Harvey collaborator John Parrish brings the same open quality to the production I remember him investing in Harvey’s work and Norwegian songstress Jenny Hval, without cutting loose as she does on her very recent record with Susanna, ably backs up Jean across the album.

Laura Jean has taken another step forward and, ironically, by taking a quiet step back. In its understatement this record conveys the clearest portrait of an artist and a person. Laura Jean has created one of the most deservingly self-titled records.

- Chris Cobcroft.