Kowanko (1993)

It's quite fitting that Chris Kowanko uses his own artwork for the cover of this stunning debut, Kowanko: He's almost more a song painter than a writer, using brush-stroke-like melodic fragments and lyrical snippets. Composing songs like ''My House,'' about the guilt of ignoring the homeless, and ''Wallflower,'' about rebuffing the advances of a disabled girl, takes a lot of courage — and when's the last time you heard that word in a review? A-