Critic’s Choice

Though the group Ulali, Thursday, April 6, at the Old Main Chapel on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, is named after a songbird, don’t expect its members to chirp like Anne Murray in concert. The trio is composed of Pura Fe Crescioni, Soni Moreno and Jennifer Kreisberg, and presents a bold mix of blues, gospel and an array of indigenous music. Accompanied only by drums, rattles and the sound of a stomp, the women are known for their unusual harmonies and a wide vocal and musical range that is at once moving, piercing, electric and soothing. In addition to performing with Robbie Robertson, Ulali opened for the Indigo Girls’ Shaming of the Sun tour in 1997 and appear on the CD of the same name. The group also contributed a few tracks to the soundtrack of 1998’s semi-indie flick Smoke Signals. The three women of Ulali refer to themselves as a “First Nations Women a Cappella Trio” — as opposed to Native American — because, in their words, their “blood and people were here long before this land was called the Americas.”