CD reviews: Kate Bush, Taylor Swift, more
50 Words for Snow
Kate Bush (Fish People/EMI)
Misty, the centerpiece of 50 Words for Snow, is the coldest love story youll hear all season. Kate Bushs narrator builds a snowman, who then animates and visits her in the night. She thrills to the touch of the snowmans freezing skin, but by morning he has melted, and all shes left with is soggy sheets and twigs on the pillow. This story unfolds over 13 minutes of piano, upright bass by the great Danny Thompson, and spare percussion by Steve Gadd. Such is Bushs power as a hypnotic spinner of weird tales that it doesnt feel a moment too long.
Just in case you think that Misty is simply a belabored metaphor for the transience of love, the artist has posted a claymation-style video of a Bush lookalike in amorous embrace with a randy snowman. But if youve followed the British art-pop singer-songwriter this far, chances are youre not mistaking it for a metaphor. Bush has always appointed her best stories with specifics that feel pulled from a parallel universe one both more whimsical and more raw than the one we inhabit. The Bush who writes cracked fairy tales and strange fiction has been largely missing in action on recent releases, but shes back in force on 50 Words for Snow, a set of deep-tundra hallucinations.
Snowflake, which features vocals from her son, traces the fall of an ice crystal from a cloud bank to the forest floor below. Lake Tahoe is a trip into the Spooky Wood along with an apparition who may or may not be searching for a lost dog. Wild Man the closest thing on the set to a single expresses deep sympathy for the Yeti. They want to hunt you down, purrs Bush, youre not an animal. Bushs snowy world is magical and enveloping but also imperiled, ready to melt away at the slightest wrong touch.
It is tem! pting to compare 50 Words for Snow to Tori Amos Night of Hunters, especially since Amos learned so many of her concept-rock moves from Bush. Although Bush isnt as showy as Amos, shes a virtuoso piano player, too, and shes also partial to long, engrossing story-songs. But while Night of Hunters is deadly serious, 50 Words for Snow is playful and even downright silly at times. For the title track, Bush convinced actor Stephen Fry to recite 50 synonyms for the white stuff, including Zhivagodamarbletash and boomerangablanca. (It goes on way too long, but on this and other tracks, Bush seems to be enjoying herself again.)
The best analogue for 50 Words is probably Robert Wyatts Shleep, a gently idiosyncratic concept record about birds. But really, Bush is on her own here, and thats the best Christmas present she could have given us: a seasonal set that isnt tradition-bound in any way. Instead, its a trip into a wintry netherworld, just in time for the first December frost.
Tris McCall
A wintry wonder
Shuffle.Play.Listen
Matt Haimovitz, cello; Christopher ORiley, piano (Oxingale)
In playing songs by Radiohead and Arcade Fire alongside arrangements of pieces by classical composers, Matt Haimovitz and Christopher ORiley arent just making an eclectic recording of covers. This 2-CD set each CD represents one genre melds approachability and complexity. The classical pieces tend to have dance or folk roots (Bernard Herrmanns Vertigo Suite has its own cinematic hook) and the pop songs are mostly richly textured.
Shuffle mode does work well for the set an Astor Piazzolla tango and Blonde Redheads Misery is a Butterfly, for example, seem to pair off naturally. Haimovitz displays a dazzling array of tone colors, bends pitches and covers an enormous range as he replaces the voices of instantly recognizable performers. In A Perfect Circles 3 Libras, one of the more unusual selections in its straightforwardness, he admirably captures the singers tension as the melody rises.
ORileys! arrange ments make the most of details: Radioheads Weird Fishes/Arpeggi sounds like a new piece that never had vocals. And between his playing and Haimovitzs, even Stravinskys backward-looking Suite Italienne sounds edgy.
Ronni Reich
Speak Now: World Tour Live
Taylor Swift (Big Machine)
Its still too early in her career for Taylor Swift to join the year-end boxed set sweepstakes. So shes done the next best thing, putting out a concert CD bundled with a tour DVD/Blu-Ray that takes viewers behind the scenes (as if anywhere is truly behind the scenes for a musician as popular, and camera-hungry, as Swift.)
The country-pop singer is rightfully proud of her Speak Now shows, and the World Tour Live package does a fine job capturing the exuberance of the Broadway-style spectacle. Swifts vocals arent quite as nuanced as they are on Speak Now, and some of the arrangements drag on. But her growth as an entertainer is real, and these cuts radiate confidence especially the fully embodied live versions of Dear John and Last Kiss. Fans get versions of Swifts favorite covers, too, including her chirpy rendition of Trains Drops of Jupiter and a bizarre but fetching stab at Bette Davis Eyes.
At $19.99 (cheaper through Amazon), this makes an excellent holiday present for the Swift fan in your life which at this point really ought to be you.
Tris McCall
Black and Brown EP
Black Milk and Danny Brown (Fat Beats)
Black Milk is Detroits foremost hip-hop producer an auteur with an instantly identifiable snare drum sound and a taste for vintage soul. Emcee Danny Brown is chaotic, hilarious, obscene; a rogue spirit coughed out of a vivid Motor City nightmare. On his mixtapes, Brown balances his will to be vile with his flashes of inspiration and insight. Black Milks style is urbane, reflective and sanded to smoothness by the rock tumbler that is life in contemporary Detroit.
Their styles shouldnt mesh, but somehow they do. The Black and Brown EP isnt the first time the ! two have collaborated: Brown incinerated a track on Black Milks otherwise world-weary Album of the Year. Black and Brown extends that alchemy over 10 new tracks, including a trio of brief instrumentals that display his imaginative beat-making. But the best tracks Zap, Wake Up and Black and Brown feature Browns haywire delivery and wildly associative storytelling. Nothing reaches the heights (or the depths, depending on how you look at it) of Browns thrillingly crude XXX mixtape. But as an introduction to two visionaries, you couldnt ask for anything better. And best of all, its a free download.
Tris McCall