Gabriele Heller
(vocals, live sound mixes, percussion); Steve Glendinning (guitar, percussion);
Wolfgang Weileder (guitar on 3 tracks).
This is such a good
CD that I felt compelled to play it twice before writing the review and I
enjoyed it even more the second time. The songs are a heady mix of cabaret
tinged songs and jazz which are intriguing, disturbing, compassionate and even
amusing by turns and always interesting. Steve as always does a grand job of
appropriate accompaniment and Gabi, an experienced improvising actor, writer
and teacher, interprets the lyrics with feeling and skill.
Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7
are the work of Heller and Glendinning, with poetry from Graham Mort on track
7;
Weileder
contributes guitar to Heller's lyrics on tracks 2,4,and 8; track 9 gives us
Heller's voice unaccompanied; track 6 is a medley of Heller's words with those
of other writers; and listeners will of course recognise Billie Holiday's song
at track 10, and the immortal words of Meeropol's Strange Fruit bring
the album to a close.
Broken is a list of many broken things, including
broken hearts, dreams, shoes and ankles, with the recording of the speaking
clock suggesting broken sleep: indeed many of the songs have the suggestion of
insomnia and unpleasant 'nightshifts'.
The agitated vocals of Run ('baby run') repeated many times make the listener wonder what
is being run from, and the guitar seems to run along; the title track seems to
be about an unpleasant bout of insomnia, sung to a rumbling heartbeat sound and
fragmented guitar, yet ending with a final letting go. Tomorrow Starts Today
is a more gentle love song; Wallflower is a party scene with a
soundtrack of voices, and the wallflower telling us that 'you know the way they
shake their beautiful bodies'.
One of the best
tracks is number 6, a medley of songs about boats and ships and migrants who
are desperately trying to escape, with clever electronic sounds producing
'water' noises; Electricity concerns that energy in all its forms, which
suggested to me that someone was awake listening to household electrical
noises; True Love is a lively request for love, amusing, with a
steady clapping rhythm and Gabi's very adventurous, unusual scat. My Tears is
sung a capella, a hymn-like tune with disturbing lyrics about 'dreaming to be
dead' weighed down with heavy stones.
Listeners will be
familiar with the last 2 tracks, track 10, Billie Holiday's plea for love, and
then Strange Fruit, which manges to bring out the horror of the 'burning
flesh' and 'scent of magnolia', with eerie guitar sounds and odd bell-like
percussion.
A veritable tour de
force. The album is available from April 2020.
I'd like to see a gig featuring these songs
when social distancing ends. And yes, the album is dedicated 'For all doctors,
nurses and health workers, who work day and night to save our lives'. The real
Nightshifters
Track list 1/ Broken
Silence 2/ Run 3/ Nightshifts 4/ Tomorrow Starts Today 5/ Wallflower 6/Hope, My
Ship, Little Boat 7/ Electricity 8/ True Love 9/ My Tears 10/ Tell Me More And
More And Then Some 11/ Strange Fruit
No comments :
Post a Comment