My Amazon Reviews: Tori Amos "Little Earthquakes"

Shifting the faultlines
5 Out of 5 Stars

Say what you will about Tori Amos, her second album bent music in a new direction. Once "Little Earthquakes" opened a whole new audience of sensitive women who liked their music heavy on mystic and or religious imagery, devoid of bombast and just speaking to a crowd that was being ignored, Tori Amos found that crack and made it her very own Teutonic plate. There's good reason for that. "Little Earthquakes" sounded like little else out at the time (bear in mind, this was the year of Nirvana) and. other than Kate Bush, no other woman was bending traditional pop structures at will.

It makes Tori an anomaly. "Silent All These Years" missed the top 40, bit she's hit the top 5 albums constantly. She rarely uses electric guitars, "Crucify" starts the album with piano and drums only. Tori;s voice was often the most electrifying here, breaking from whispers and panting into tortured wails, then back again, like "Precious Things." (Which contains one of the most brutal put-downs of all-time in "So you can make me cum? That doesn't make you Jesus.") The painful alliance between womanhood and Christendom is a reoccurring theme on "Little Earthquakes," and Tori's "faeries" clung to it because they all understood where a riposte like "what's so special about really deep thoughts? You better hope I bleed real soon, how's that thought for you?" could spring from.

It's why "Little Earthquakes" meets one of my main standards of 5 star/classic albums. Tori successfully leapt from Glam/Goth Gal on "Y Kant Tori Read" to a knowing singer/songwriter the likes we hadn't seen since Carole King. She has artistically outgrown that label a long time back, but "Little Earthquakes" made young adult women realize that there was a place for them in music that didn't have to be Nine Inch Nails or Phil Collins.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Kate Bush "50 Words For Snow"

Winter Music
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Grey skies, swirling flakes, choir-boy son. In "50 Words for Snow," her first new collection of songs in eight years, Kate Bush pulls herself in a cold cloak of moody introspection that seems perfect for brooding on the shortest days of the year. The CD clocks in at a dreamy hour, with songs stretching as long as 13 minutes. Themes drift in and out, establishing themselves but never pulverizing you. "The World is so loud," she quietly intones on the opening song, "but keep falling, I'll find you." This is no "Running Up That Hill." "50 Words for Snow" takes its time to accumulate.

That may make it tough going for some listeners. Some of the songs here take on a classical, even operatic quality (comparisons to Tori Amos' recent "Night of Hunters" sprang to mind on my first listen) to many of the songs. There's also nothing here that ropes you in on a first listen. Kate is exploring a sensual world here, and it moves in slowly. Still, there are two moments of pure oddness here. On "Snowed In At Wheeler Street," Kate may have drawn the absolute weirdest vocal performance out of Elton John's career, and on the title track, Stephen Fry drily keeps giving his 50 words, each phrase becoming increasingly odder as the song goes on. All the while, Kate is egging him on, singing "come on now, you've got 32 to go!" With its bubbly synth gliding underneath, it's the most likely song to become remixed into a single.

Then again, despite the melancholy, cold feeling to the disc, "50 Words For Snow" contains songs about making love to a snowman ("Misty") and possibly getting it on with Bigfoot ("Wild Man"). Chilly or not, you never know what to expect when it comes to Kate Bush. I'm more than willing to sit by with a cup of hot cocoa and see where the seasons take her.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Tori Amos "Night Of Hunters"

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)