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Alone together

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Garment district

Karin Berquist of Over the Rhine dreamily noted early in the band’s opening set that she “likes letters” and that if you rearrange the ones in “Hem” and “OTR,” you can get the word “mother.” “I think that’s nice,” she insisted, wide-eyed over the low laughter. Berquist is a bevy of contradictions: an Emma Bunton ringer with her blonde pigtails and huge silver hoop earrings, she ends up coming off as a semi-sweetened country version of Baby Spice. Oh, and her voice? Beyoncé-butter without the R&B booty, injected with some of Fiona Apple’s raw vegan smoke. She practically purrs every word. No wonder that she doesn’t get ordinary song requests: at the Paradise some random dude in the front row handed her a long-stemmed red rose with a note rolled around it. Pattering back and forth on a rug laid out on stage, she was the most songwritery songwriter here, and her five-senses attack trumped Ellyson’s natural polish — even though Hem was what I’d come to hear. Berquist’s foil is guitarist/pianist/partner-in-crime/co-writer Linford Detweiler, who looks exactly like Fred Jones but happens to be an incredible instrumentalist. The spotlight, though, was made for Karin. “Born” has that hair-on-your-arms-raising-quality, and “Five O’Clock Shadow” was probably sensual enough to eventually wow the pants off of some of the couples gripping hands.

“Thanks for staying out late on a Monday,” Ellyson said as she and Hem wrapped things up. Already I’m watching her through pleasantly slitted eyes, wishing I had a pillow. It’s nearly Tuesday. The week’s not yet half over. But thanks to Birquist and Ellyson, my mind is filled with adult-sanctioned lullabies about fireflies, lakeside romances, and sunlit fields of blooming corn — and despite the no air-conditioning plus my neighbors blasting Fall Out Boy’s “Dance Dance” on repeat, I’ll be sleeping the sleep of a righteous Southern belle after her first cotillion.

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