cabaret

As It Turns Out

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:12:00 +0000

Melanie Flannery fronts a New York-based jazz ensemble called the Mel Flannery Trucking Co. Backed by bassist Matt Aronoff, drummer Danny Sher, and keyboardist and songwriting collaborator Lee Pardini, Flannery cultivated a sound that bridges pop, cabaret, jazz, and soul. Their latest offering, As It Turns Out, remains consistent with previous releases.

It also has little to recommend itself. While not unpleasant, the album did not capture my imagination. The arrangements are nice, if a bit too staid and preoccupied with conveying boho sophistication. Flannery and Pardini's lyrics tend to reflect on failed romance without tapping into new insights from such a well-documented subject in popular songwriting. Likewise, Flannery's alto is nice, but lacks singularity in tone or phrasing to set her apart from other jazz-inflected musicians who might grace Starbucks compilations.

Regrettably, I heard little variance between songs in As It Turns Out. I had difficulty telling the difference between "Something About You," "Lift Me Up, Tie Me Down," "We're Still Here," and "I Won't Say Goodbye." I do like Pardini and Sher's flourishes on "I Need You Here With Me," and "You Know What To Do." The latter also serves as one of the album's most appealing track, with Flannery cutting loose. I also appreciate the goofy lyrics in bonus track "You Are the Only One For Me." Flannery's biggest moment is "Gone," the album's proper closer, which boasts a lovely vocal performance brimming with emotion.

At times, the group's clean, slightly funky sound provides a jarring contrast with a song's content. This is most evident in "Running," a groovy slow jam about domestic violence. I appreciate Flannery and Pardini's efforts to represent a very real social problem from a survivor's perspective. This extends toward the album's liner notes, which provide information on the Human Rights Campaign and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. I don't think the song needs a foreboding sound to reflect the content. I just feel strange about the song having such a swing to it.

The group's talent is evident. I just wish I had more of a personal stake in the results.

Written by: Alyx Vesey, August 4th 2010

Oompa!

admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Sabrina Chap

Ert Records

A few weeks back, Sabrina Chap (born Chapadjiev) contacted me to see if I wanted to review her new album, Oompa! Never one to turn down a free meal from female musicians, I obliged and she mailed me a copy (with a handwritten letter, no less — thanks, Sabrina!). While the item was in transit, Kjerstin Johnson at Bitch reviewed it for B-Sides.

Having not heard Chap before, the article gave me a good idea of what I’d be listening to. The cabaret sensibility of “Never Been a Bad Girl” suggested The Dresden Dolls (though not Evelyn Evelyn’s super-problematic crip drag) on first listen, as well as Inara George and Jolie Holland in louder moments. The emphasis on classical and ragtime instrumentation also recalled Squirrel Nut Zippers’ dedication to jump blues, jazz, polka, and swing. Both the Zippers and beloved Austin mainstay White Ghost Shivers have cultivated antiquated aural aesthetics to undermine nostalgia with biting observations, sly asides, and at times bawdy lyrics about the realities of modern life. Finally, Chap also seems to share similar feminist camp sensibilities with fellow New York-based retro revisionists Ménage à Twang. I haven’t heard Chap on KOOP’s “What’s a Girl to Do” program, but I think she’d be a perfect fit.

I don’t offer these artists up to slight Chap as derivative, but rather to put her in a larger context of artists. I believe Chap’s talents stand up on their own. I’m also interested in pursuing her written work. She’s penned some plays and edited a zine called Cliterature. She also edited Live Through This, an anthology about women who use art to work through self-destructive tendencies. The book contains interviews from Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, Eileen Myles, and Annie Sprinkle. That’s a helluva dinner party.

Most of Oompa! charmed me. The songwriting is sharp, the melodies are catchy, and Chap’s band possesses the sort of musical precision that allows it to really swing. I especially liked the self-effacing opening track “Blueprint for Destruction,” idyllic “Carolina,” reflective “Illinois,” spunky “Never Been a Bad Girl,” and the uncertain but defiantly optimistic “Boat Song,” which closes the album. “Failed Waitress/Failed Astronaut” may rank as my favorite track, as it turns the all-too-relateable subject matter of being college educated yet maligned by limited career prospects into a fun little jig. The slinky “Idiom,” which documents a clandestine hook-up with a sexy female stranger, is a close second.

Unfortunately, there are two songs on Oompa! that I can do without. “Little White House” brings to mind the nuclear family idyll espoused in Little Shop of Horrors' “Somewhere That’s Green,” which feminist-minded pop stars like Paula Cole critiqued in “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” I’m of the mind that Chap is doing similar work here, as the minor key and stately pace suggest compromised expectations. However, much like I felt with “Cowboys,” it’s hard for me to not hear this song as being condescending to its subject.

I also cringe when I hear “Ze Paris Song,” a song about a tourist trying to fit in with her surroundings while eating baguettes and brie as she reflects on the tragic men who love her and eschews the Eiffel Tower. That Chap delivers it in a put-on accent doesn’t help matters. Much like “House,” I believe Chap is being critical here. The results just rub me the wrong way.

Yet despite those minor grievances, I’d still recommend Oompa! Give it a spin on the ol’ Victrola.

Written by: Alyx Vesey, June 13th 2010

Evelyn Evelyn

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Evelyn Evelyn

Eleven Records

“Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.” —Susan Sontag

Evelyn Evelyn is the creation of Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls and lately a successful solo artist) and musician Jason Webley. Palmer and Webley have built a layered piece of art rather than simply a collaborative musical effort or side project. It includes an intricate back story in addition to its musical content: Evelyn Evelyn are conjoined twins, each one named Evelyn Neville (since neither they nor anyone else could keep straight their given names “Eva” and “Lyn”) who were purportedly discovered via MySpace by Palmer and Webley. Between them they have three legs, two arms, two hearts, three lungs, and a single liver. Born in 1985, there is little information known about the twins until 1996, when they appeared at Dillard and Fullerton's Traveling Circus. In 2007, Palmer and Webley “made contact” with Evelyn and Evelyn and encouraged them to make a studio record.

I first heard about this project at an Amanda Palmer show and thought it was creative, interesting, and different. However, the feminist blogosphere went supernova with rage after the Evelyn Evelyn project became more widely known, claiming Palmer engaged in “crip drag,” and objecting to the idea that conjoined twins “need help” from two able-bodied people. To complicate matters more, the twins' background (as stated on the record) involves a history of sexual exploitation and abuse, which was further fuel for feminist media laser-sights. Afterward, Palmer seemed not to be able to do anything right in the eyes of Internet feminism, and a quick Google search will reveal headlines like “3 Reasons We're Over Amanda Palmer,” “Amanda Palmer Behaves Like An Asshole Part 37,” and “How Amanda Palmer Lost a Fan or, My Own Private Backlash.” (Interestingly, Jason Webley seemed largely spared from the backlash for a project he helped create.)

As for the music itself, the twelve songs on Evelyn Evelyn are catchy, almost jingle-like tunes that rely heavily on piano, accordion, ukulele, and violin, and Palmer and Webley harmonize wonderfully. “The Tragic Events of September” parts one, two, and three are spoken word over a spooky piano background in which the twins tell of their woe-filled life while speaking of themselves in the third person. Each one is punctuated with sound effects and lines spoken by the “characters” in the song. Other songs on the record, including “Sandy Fishnets,” “Elephant Elephant,” and “Chicken Man,” further detail events in the twins' lives.

“My Space,” which is a tribute to the social networking site on which the twins were supposedly discovered, was heralded as the singing debut of Frances Bean Cobain; her voice is layered over many other guest singers, however, and is impossible to distinguish. This song sounds like a parody of every bombastic '80s power ballad in memory, and includes drums and a lengthy guitar solo. The album ends with a very pretty ukulele cover of Joy Division's “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

This record is of interest to fans of show tunes, noir, cabaret, and Tin Pan Alley. The theatricality and operatic nature of the music and storyline will appeal to ex-drama students, and current fans of Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley will appreciate the interesting tangent in their respective current careers that still maintains the level of cleverness and originality fans have come to expect from each.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, May 7th 2010

A Thousand Shark's Teeth

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:39:00 +0000

By My Brightest Diamond

Asthmatic Kitty Records

Late last November, My Brightest Diamond came through my town. I'd heard the name before and was slightly curious, even read a bit about them in the music press. Nevertheless, I didn't go to the show. In hindsight, my decision to skip the concert was a big mistake.

But let's back up for a bit. To refer to My Brightest Diamond as a "them" is both right and wrong. While the official MySpace page cites over a dozen contributors, and the CD liner notes are jam-packed with names, the captain at the helm of this sonic ship is thirty-four year old Shara Worden. My Brightest Diamond is her project, and her polished poperatic (that's pop operatic) style permeates everything she touches. A Thousand Shark's Teeth—an album six years in the making that Worden wrote, produced, and arranged herself—is the second installment in this multi-talented musician's grandiose vision.

Hailing from a musically-inclined family, Worden was raised on a steady diet of classical music, gospel, and jazz. As an adult, she went on to earn a degree in opera from the University of North Texas. She plays at least ten instruments—including piano, accordion, guitar, ukulele, and kalimba (African thumb piano). While her classical influences range from Debussy to Pierre Boulez, her pop music sensibilities stem in part from her love of Edith Piaf and Threepenny Opera composer Kurt Weill. She is also an acolyte of the late Jeff Buckley, a musician to whom she is routinely compared. Her cabaret sensibilities are reflected in her stage shows, which often incorporate elaborate costumes, puppetry, and dance.

A Thousand Shark's Teeth is an engulfing record, steeped in luxurious orchestration and seemingly infatuated with all things heavenly; each of the eleven songs is full of words to indicate this. Take, for instance, "Inside a Boy" ("We are stars colliding/We crash like lightning/into love") or "Ice and The Storm" ("I want a storm to blow it out"). There's a windblown rainstorm brewing in "Black and Costaud." You can hear it in the music. It's a tune full of swollen clouds and sweeping cinematic menace, the sort of song that seems well suited to illustrate the inner turmoil of a character in contemporary ballet.

For all of its grand swelling opulence, My Brightest Diamond also embrace the everyday minutiae of love, especially with the charmer "If I Were Queen," a song that relishes even those meaningless quarrels every couple has: "We'd collect things and we could argue where to put them."

I cannot help but think of A Thousand Shark's Teeth as a headphones-at-home-on-a-Sunday-afternoon sort of album. I should know. I've tried to listen to it under more active circumstances, such as while riding the bus or on walks around the park. There's just too much going on in Shara Worden's musical microcosm to take everything in when there are distractions. Worden savors the little details, and in doing so, creates music that must be appreciated with the same sort of intimacy and zeal.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, February 13th 2009