blackleatherbookshelf | Entries tagged with classical

Transfusion Confusion,
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Like so many older artists, Pater Gabriel has ideas about his older works. For some reason, those wonderful, ingrained and intensely personal songs from your life (and his career) need to be re-imagined. "New Blood" takes 13 songs, orchestrates them (think the "Scratch My Back" CD), and submits them for our consumption. It's pretty grand sounding music, cinematic and broad. But when you think of how a song like "In Your Eyes" wove such a spell the first time you heard it, this version will leave you with a tepid feeling.

So let's look at the songs that gain from the treatment. "Mercy Street" and "San Jacinto" gain in scope, while "Intruder" becomes a whole new menace. That's three. Then there's the songs that give you a serious dose of WTF. "Solisbury Hill" was as perfect a song as Gabriel has ever written, and the new version all but made me grind my teeth. "The Rhythm Of The Heat" has the word 'rhythm' in the freaking title, so taking away the drums functionally neuters that song. Same for "Red Rain" - all the drama is sucked out.

Which leaves the rest of the album in a holding pattern, with a bonus point for not forcing us to listen to "Biko" one more time. Also, "Up" is already a ten year old album. "New Blood" is making me wonder if Gabriel, like David Bowie, has hit a dry well. Bowie is at least sitting his time out, "New Blood" is mediocre enough to make me think maybe Peter Gabriel should give consideration to a similar spell.

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Oh my goodness, Tori has become Kate Bush
4 Out Of 5 Stars

When listening to Tori Amos' new album, "Night of Hunters," it is helpful to remember that Tori was a conservatory trained musician. And she's always loved to conceptualize her music; starting with "Boys For Pele" in 1996. So it shouldn't come as a suprise that when the classical recording label Deutsche Grammophon offered her a commission to write a song cycle based on classical works, she jumped at it. "Night Of Hunters," which chronicles a woman dealing with the end of a relationship, is an excellent summation of Tori's talents as both musician and composer.

Back when I first received a copy of "Y Kant Tori Read," I remember telling friends I thought Tori was going to be the American Kate Bush. "Little Earthquakes" solidified that opinion for me, but I never thought Tori went all the way into Kate's musical extravagance until this album. Much of "Hunter" recalls Bush's "Aerial," especially the "Sky Full of Honey" suite that is that album's second disc. Filled with lush romantic orchestration and Tori's usual literate lyrics, "Hunter" contains emotional tensions that Tori last explored on "Scarlett's Walk" in 2002.

In the same vein as "Scarlett's Walk" and its themes of a journey through womanhood, "Hunter" takes a particular moment of womanhood and tries to dissect it. As well as a difficult one. Tori needed a foil to try and help her character deal with the loss of love and image, for which we are introduced to her daughter Natasha as "Annabelle The Fox." But what "Hunter" does not do is bow to pop conventions. This is strictly a classical record and there aren't nods to hip-hop (as they did on "Abnormally Attracted to Sin's" opener, "Give") or standard pop instrumentation.

Indeed, only "Cactus Practice" or "Carry" contain what one would conventionally call a 'hook,' and when Tori and her daughter trade lines on "Job's Coffin," you might be slightly tempted to attempt singing along. But to return to my earlier Kate Bush analogy, "Night Of Hunters" is not an easy listen as much as it is an unfolding one. It's also a strong return to the Tori that amazed us 20 years ago on "Little Earthquakes."

Thanks to Amazon reviewer T.Fisher: here are the sources for Tori's songs on "Night Of The Hunter."

1. Shattering Sea (Alkan: Song of the Madwoman on the Sea-Shore, Prelude op. 31 no. 8)
2. SnowBlind (Granados: Añoranza - from 6 Pieces on Spanish Folksongs)
3. Battle of Trees (Satie: Gnossienne no. 1)
4. Fearlessness (Granados: Orientale from 12 Spanish Dances)
5. Cactus Practice (Chopin: Nocturne op. 9 no. 1)
6. Star Whisperer (Schubert: Andantino from Piano Sonata in A major D 959)
7. Job's Coffin (Inspired by the next song, Nautical Twilight)
8. Nautical Twilight (Mendelssohn: Venetian Boat Song from Songs Without Words op. 30)
9. Your Ghost (Schumann: Theme and Variations in E flat major WoO 24 from Ghost Variations)
10. Edge of the Moon (Bach: Siciliano from Flute Sonata BWV 1031)
11. The Chase (Mussorgsky: The Old Castle from Pictures at an Exhibition)
12. Night of Hunters (Scarlatti: Sonata in F minor, K.466 and the Gregorian Chant "Salva Regina")
13. Seven Sisters (Bach: Prelude in C minor)
14. Carry (Debussy: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, from Preludes I)