Published on Feb 13, 1999
The synthesizers are so warm. I’ve never heard such warm
synthesizers outside a Hammond organ. It’s euphoric in a fuzzy
impression of hearth, good friends and wine in “My Best To You”,
it’s the brief and otherworldly edge of twilight in “Man From
Mars”, it’s the smoky colors and Billie Holiday in “Harlem In
Havana”. Her voice is so blues. It’s the “kiss my ass” anger in
“Lead Balloon”, underflowing and sweet in “The Crazy Cries Of
Love”, understanding-exasperated-loving (somehow at the same time)
in “Face Lift”.
Definitely not your generic folk (and folk
is getting generic… what a paradox!). There are some songs
where I thought “What? She did that? She’s allowed to do
that?”, especially when she deliberately cancels entire
beats in some bars, “bunking” them to the next one. Other times she
has this enviable indifference when she borrows what she wants from
different genres to produce her own sound. I feel jealous, because
I’m shallow that way, and respectful because her talent is so there
underneath the pie crust layer.
So some of the stuff is obviously a little too 70’s. “No
Apologies” disdains that “lawyers and loan sharks/are laying
America to waste” and that our ecosystem is failing, while in “Face
Lift” she talks about getting flack for “shacking up.” But the
title track
Taming The Tiger lives in the current like no other track
I’ve heard lately. “I’m a runaway from the record biz/From the
hoods in the hood/And the whinny white kids/Boring!” Exactly.
Squeeze in David Morales somewhere and I’ll be yours forever.
Who should get this album? Aside from folk fans, I propose it to
blues and Enya fans. It’s an album worth the money and indulging
oneself in. It’s one of those albums one can fall asleep to. And as
if it matters, it’s practically on the best albums of the year list
on every critical publication (including the Vault’s own). You’ll
never want to go back to “genuine junkfood for juveniles.”