The album will be launched with a tour that will bring Steve Dawson (now living in Nashville) back to Vancouver on March 30, but his Rattlesnake Cage is a modest beauty. Dawson is a multi-tasker — songwriter, producer, owner of his own label, Black Hen, which has over- seen a very good tribute to Missis- sippi John Hurt—but here he has taken a few choice acoustic guitars and a vintage microphone to make an album of all instrumentals that showcase him as a musician. Dexterous, of course, with a grounding in folk-blues, the record seems unfettered (the title notwithstanding) and relishes in the sound of a guitar for its own sake. It’s not lofty, in other words, but earthy and homespun.