Lovers In The City Lovers In The City
On the surface "Lovers in the City" does not seem very different or radical than Tanita's other four albums. However, like her previous work, upon careful scrutiny this effort is delightfully spiced with innovations and surprises.Typical delicious Tanita darkness nicely arranged throughout and delivered with the stunning tonal quality of Tanita's voice.
The very 1st cut "I Might Be Crying" is the best song I have heard this year. It has a wonderful calypso type rhythm with haunting chants and backing vocals by Jennifer Warnes. Jennifer does backing vocals on several other cuts and is superb. Tanita also uses the London Session Orchestra and The Valentini Strings on selected cuts.
The arrangement and execution of these resources is masterful as "Feeding the Witches" aptly demonstrates, featuring Tanita and the London Session Orchestra. We've heard Jewel yodel, now Tanita joins the yodeling craze. The "Yodelling Song" is worth the the whole price of the CD to hear Tanita do a duet yodel with Don Edwards, while Jim Keltner bangs the drums.
Every cut is crafted with caring precision,
thoughtful arrangements and fine selection of musicians and resources.
There is not a weak song in the bunch, and what a wonderful treat to
get ten gifts at once. This album is superb and highly
recommended.
The definitive dark mood spinner, Tanita Tikaram succeeds where all the clones fail.
Blessed with a rich, smoky, resonating voice, Tikaram doesn't need all the production support to make the material work. She can sing with a mellow bongo beat and it's still hypnotic -- without being melodramatic.
Thanks to the pinpoint production skills of Tikaram herself and Thomas Newman, the instrumentation takes a back seat to the voice, which has the strength and subtlety normally associated with jazz artists.
The other asset that pushes her head and shoulders above the rest of the female vocalist horde is her melodic sensibility. Using her voice as a pointer, her songs rise and fall inside her with the melodic ease of a drunken chanteuse.
Smoky, dark and ethereal, Lovers in the City will hang in the air intangibly like a fine perfume -- classy, subtle and decidedly understated.
Tanita Tikaram sees herself in the tradition of singer-songwriter, like Nanci Griffith, Joan Armatrading and Mary Margaret O'Hara. Which is probably why the Average Joe rock fan (into Oasis, admires PJ Harvey), doesn't really see her as part of the normal scheme of things, sadly. Five albums down the line, and it's still little miss "Good Tradition" who lingers in most minds. After all, who remembers Tanita plugging singles from the three albums that followed four million-selling debut Ancient Heart on TOTP [Top of The Pops]? There you go.
But perhaps that's been good news for her 1995 return with Lovers in the City (Eastwest). Still no hits, but the long-player's cool sophistication and Tanita's fresh-faced maturity makes her ripe for reassessment by people who thought she'd been swept away with 1988. Lovers in the City is quality stuff. The mood is subtle, New Age introspective and calm throughout. Maybe that is down to co-producer Thomas Newman, film score man for Scent of a Woman and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. The catch is, the music is too smooth to rock the senses: all too often Tanita and band's poise and silk touch tranquillity shove the music into MOR territory. So nope, PJ Harvey fans won't buy it. Being a broody twentysomething story teller suits Tanita, but a few sonic experiments away from those folk rockers wouldn't do any harm. Let's see: a 1960s pop song cover perhaps, or a team up with Tricky of Massive Attack.
--- Angela Lewis
/// CD cat.# < east/west98804> $14.99 (import)
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