Angela Motter's freshly released album Pleasure and Pain presents sweet meldings of what she cagily calls "folkalternagroove".

Nominated for two GLAMA awards, one for Best Out Song and one for Best Out Recording, Motter returned from a New York tour this spring with a 1999 GLAMA Award for Best Out Recording for her song "My Mama Told Me".

Motter has infused Pleasure and Pain, her second release on her own Hey MISTER! label, with searing lyrics, sensuous vocals, and quality musicianship to create a gritty - yet at times humorous - compilation born of her own pleasure and pain.

"[Co-Producer] Ricky [Keller] and I mixed the organic sound of the acoustic guitar and Scott's live drum with his or our own drum loops. Scott [Meeder] practically arranged his parts on the spot. He's got such an ear for detail" revealed Motter. "I was so happy, so excited laying down those tracks. We were so in the pocket. My dream band."

The Atlanta native has opened for or shared the stage with B.B. King, Indigo Girls, Louden Wainwright III, Sandra Bernhard, Michelle Malone, and Melissa Ferrick among others.

In a recent solo performance at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse, opening for Louden Wainwright III, The University Reporter (now Atlanta Press) review included these comments: "Strong melodies and unpretentious lyrics drove these folk songs, pushing them into blues and soul territory... Every song was infused with passion and down-to-earth honesty that superseded the folk idiom... She effortlessly turned the Variety into a cozy coffeehouse."

A native Southerner who hopes to never leave her beloved oaks here, Motter wrestles in her songwriting with weighty issues - religion, limitations imposed by the traditional South, death of loved ones - but never loses her trademark spunkiness and goofball humor.

While covering the 1999 GLAMA awards where Motter's band was invited to perform "isitaboyisitagirl" (nominated for Best Out Song), GAYBC's radio announcer said Motter looked like "one tough girl". He "wouldn't want to mix it up with her" he rejoined. But appearances deceive, and the truth is the muscular Motter would be more likely to "overpower" Roberto Begnini style.

Though often dressed in imposing "artist suffering" black, her short, dark hair slicked back, on stage Motter has honed an unpretentious, often disarming performance style. Turning on her angel's voice, she becomes at once a boy soprano in a smoky devil's den world.

Motter draws diverse audiences together with her openness and honesty. She is a bright entertainer with broad musical range. During the "GLAMA tour", Motter had the ultra-hip Manhattan audience at the neighborhood watering hole The Living Room singing along to her redemptive anthem from Pleasure and Pain, "I'm Free". Refreshingly positive, Motter broods not.

"Better Get Used to It", Motter's "diva track", will appear in grocery stores throughout the southeast this summer. The song was selected for a promotional R&B compilation CD called BAMA Jams for Welch's BAMA jelly, available free at point of purchase. Motter hopes to get the word out to new listeners through this compilation.

Motter began her recording career in a pop-jazz vein soon after earning a degree in Classical Guitar Performance and studies in Jazz Guitar from Georgia State University (1985). "Secret Lover," her song from the compilation CD Best of the Jazz Flavours Cats IV (Primedia), gained heavy airplay in Atlanta and on the nationally syndicated Jazz Flavours radio show.

After an evening spent opening for B.B. King at Emory University, Motter made a sharp turn from pop-jazz toward an exploration of the blues. "I stayed up all night playing my guitar the night after that show," she enthused. Back to blues, folk, and R&B inspired rock, Motter began transcribing Robert Johnson tunes and working slide guitar into her repertoire.

Her self-released debut recording Outta Control continued the bluesy edge and enabled Motter to establish a solid following in Atlanta and to travel with gigs around the Southeast, Northeast and San Francisco Bay area. The single "Finely Tuned Machine", inspired by a dream in which a lover is hooked up to an uppers-and-downers dispensing machine, received heavy college radio airplay in Atlanta, Minnesota and Connecticut.

Mountain biking on her "steel steed," weightlifting, horseback riding, and meditation fuel her and help her maintain her sanity as she navigates the gritty byways of life in Atlanta.

"The bike thing is good balance for me," said the lanky musician, sporting fresh scrapes and bruises on her right forearm sustained on her first outing since breaking her collarbone. "It gets me out in the woods and keeps me from having the total pallor of a musician who's inside all the time."

For one who has been playing songs since the age of ten, who played her first gig at 15 ("I remember because my Dad had to drive me there."), and who has experienced every minute of her life through music, the richly personal Pleasure and Pain represents the latest stage in Motter's diverse development. Pleasure and Pain recalls moments sacred and profane, and is woven together by the common thread of Motter's deepest, funkiest grooves.

"I write because I have to," she states clearly. How lucky for the rest of us.