Press Kit

That is to say, Gayl's recently released debut album "Two Hands" is no homemade, self-released, one-woman, MySpace affair. It's the result of months of work with professional musicians (including help from Norah Jones' drummer Andrew Borger and Sting's guitar player Dominic Miller) in a Marin studio after she was signed by veteran producer George Daly, head of About Records and the man who discovered The Cars.

"I feel blessed," Gayl says of her music career thus far. "Very, very lucky."

"Two Hands" has the polish of a practiced performer, but Gayl began writing songs in earnest only four years ago. She split her time as a child between her mother's place in Marin and her father's Castro flat in San Francisco, eventually going to the Naropa Institute (now University) in Boulder, Colo., for her undergraduate degree. She returned to the Bay Area to get her master's in psychology from Sonoma State, anticipating a career in that field.

But after a painful breakup, she found herself in need of another creative outlet. She began performing at open mikes and eventually won a contest called, optimistically, Marin Idol in the fall of 2005. "Someone from the record company saw me, and took me in for an audition," Gayl says. Then came a development deal - to put a few songs on tape - and then a full record contract in May 2006.

Around that time, Gayl met one of her principal collaborators, professional guitarist Chris Haugen, at a party in Larkspur. The sonic chemistry, they both say, was immediate. "I felt an unspoken connection," Haugen says. "Larkin's music is great. Her voice is great."

He pauses, waiting for the right word. "She has an ease that is remarkable. Graceful."

Daly doesn't mince words about Gayl. "She's the real deal," he says, noting that he's worked with Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell. "I've seen many talented females, and Larkin really has it.

"In her songs, the relationship between men and women is fascinating in its vividness and beauty."

Gayl herself jokes about her sudden career change - "I got three degrees to become a singer-writer" - but says that she doesn't view her time studying psychology as wasted. Her 10-song album brims with empathy, and she switches between storyteller mode (as in her imagining of the mythic "Penelope," wife of Odysseus) and writing autobiographically (the opening song, "Warrior," is for her American Indian fiance).

While Gayl's songwriting was spurred by a breakup, this isn't really a breakup album. Certainly, refrains like "this time I'll be just fine" in "Penelope" do speak directly to a certain someone, but the overall feel is buoyant, not bitter. Gayl views the album as a closed loop, influenced heavily by Joseph Campbell's hero's journey archetype.

The exceptionally clear and layered production, much of it recorded on vintage instruments, evinces Daly's philosophy of never letting any element overpower the singer's voice. Gayl glides lightly over the surface of the songs, which manage that pop trick of being both simple and deep.

"I'm inspired by personal stories," she says, "but also ... I don't know where some songs come from. For instance, one song is about a woman who is a mistress. Certainly, that's not something I've experienced. But that song came in like 15 minutes, and at first I thought it was about the Patriot Act ... but when I started listening to it, and other people heard it, it was about infidelity."

As befitting someone who spent a good bit of her childhood in the Castro, Gayl also tackles same-sex marriage in the lilting "I Do," which is available as a free download online. Her mother and father, a photographer-schoolteacher and a folk-New Age musician, she says, have been "nothing but supportive."

In the last song of the album, "Back to the Beginning," Gayl bids adieu to making plans, but in person, she is about to begin another phase of her nascent music career: promotion and touring. She and her fiance live together in an Airstream trailer, splitting their time between Fairfax and Santa Fe, N.M., but she says she could see them relocating to Los Angeles. This fall, she'll embark on a tour around the West, with perhaps a national tour to follow. Daly says that About Records has a three-pronged strategy to give Gayl exposure - involving Internet offerings and blogs, live performance and radio airplay - as an artist with broad, Norah Jones-y appeal. Her songs have already attracted attention from local radio stations like KFOG, and have landed on the soundtrack for a forthcoming Cuba Gooding Jr. film.

For a woman entering a volatile industry, Gayl seems relaxed about her future. After a day running errands in San Francisco, she was off to New Mexico and then South Dakota to be with her fiance for the Sun Dance ceremony. "I'll probably write a song on the way home in the car," she says, flashing a smile. "That's usually what happens."