Sanctuary Records Week @ Music Spectrum:Adam Green & Emiliana Torrini

SANCTUARY RECORDS WEEK CD GIVEAWAYS! Win a prize package of CDs from Sanctuary Records. Details below.


Jazz-influenced Rock: Adam Green’s Gemstones
Adam Green’s Gemstones is the unlikeliest children’s record, but it’s got a children’s record flair for switching styles, being danceable, and goofy. The songs are brief, and often tell little stories. However, while my 11-month old son kind of likes the bouncing keyboard, guitars, and drums, there’s really none of the songs I’d want him listening to when he starts to figure out how to say words and repeat sentences.

Adam Green creates cabaret folk with a healthy does of lounge lizard spunk. Green settles uncomfortably into the Jazz-influenced Rock section of the Spectrum, even while being more folk than jazz, more pop than rock. Cabaret settles him next to Rufus Wainwright; odd, eccentric lyrics places him next to Devendra Banhart. I’ve seen comparisons to Burt Bacharach and Jacques Brel. However, I don’t see Green gaining a lot of sophisticates as fans, and he was featured on a compilation called Anti-Folk. After all, Green is able to write a cheeky, upbeat little tune called “He’s the Brat” to deal with Satan and the evilness of beauty.

Of course, that location in the Spectrum says nothing about the other major comparison I hear: Jim Morrison and the Doors. Listen to the runaway keyboard on “Over the Sunrise,” and “L.A. Woman” is definitely lurking here. When Green scoops notes to deliver some dramatic line, like “Let’s break into the labyrinth of lies” on “Gemstones,” you can hear Morrison singing, “Before you sink into unconsciousness/I’d like to have another kiss” (“The Crystal Ship”).

Some of the songs are like overtures to a musical, able to change tempo, style, and mood on a dime. However, while an overture usually previews full tunes to be heard later, Green's little overtures are stand alone works, the brief snatches of tunes to be the only glimpse. For instance, on "Gemstones," there's no return later in the song or album to the leg kicking, arm spread, full throated bravado of Green singing, "Barcelona, Down to Barcelona. . .Dunkin' Donuts, Give me Dunkin' Donuts."

Analyzing Green’s lyrics could take years of study, because the layers of word association are piled on top of each other like exposed strata at an archeological dig. Yet, that’s what makes the songs so appealing. You play along, and as “Down on the Street” opens with a “Sing, Sing, Sing” floor tom drum beat, you’re pretty sure he’s talking about watching a crime in progress while “you suck on a cranberry candy” a la Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives.” Then he’s suddenly talking about Pepe Le Peu and wanting a baby brother. That throws you for a loop, but you trace it back and perhaps, yes, could it be?, he got there through the association of the awkwardness of being the one to report the crime, Pepe Le Peu’s awkwardness with women and not recognizing his own problem, and wanting a baby brother because otherwise you’re stuck with your own sorry self. Oh, that’s just a speculation, but listen again, you’ll probably find a different connection.

Speaking of lyrics, there’s good reason to slap a parental advisory label on Gemstones. Green can be explicit, although it’s not all just for dumb fun or misogyny. Granted, I don’t even want to really know what he’s talking about on “Carolina,” what with red bricks dropping out of female genitalia and such. However, “Choke on a Cock” is perverted and rude, but this isn’t some chauvinistic rap aimed at demeaning women. Instead, Green’s just making a comparison between shaking hands with George W. Bush and. . .“choking on a cock.”

By the way, if you accidentally go to www.adamgreen.com, instead of Adam Green’s official Website which is www.adamgreen.net, you’ll find the resume for a different Adam Green, who is a producer/editor/sound mixer. We’ll call him Green.com. While some of the acts Green.com’s worked with may have something in common with our Adam Green, at least by name like Revolting Cocks, there’s plenty of dissimilarity, such as Hanson and Paula Abdul. So just be warned: while Green.com posted his resume looking to mix whatever comes next, our hero, Adam Green (adamgreen.net) will be working day and night in some diner writing strange tunes about our strange world and then you’ll suddenly realize that he’s writing about your strange life and the little strange thoughts that fly together through the electricity of your brain cells.

Thank you to Adam Green, Rough Trade, and the Sanctuary Records Group for the review copy.


Jazz-influenced Rock: Emiliana Torrini’s Fisherman’s Woman
Tender. That’s the word that kept coming to mind when I saw Sufjan Stevens perform, and as Emiliana Torrini’s new album, Fisherman’s Woman, opens with a pulsing guitar on “Nothing Brings Me Down,” tender is the word here too. Torrini’s airy, ethereal vocals combined with the plaintive, jazz-tinged songs recalls much of Stevens’ ability to transport you to another time, place, and feeling. There are clouds here; there is drizzle; there is warmth in small places; there is cold creeping at the corners; there is love flickering in the candle glow.

Torrini finds a happy home in the Spectrum next to Charlotte Martin for Martin’s similar sad-hopeful songs. Norah Jones is just next door because Torrini and Jones have a child-like yet soulful delivery.

Now, because Torrini is from Iceland, has that airy delivery, and has a certain accent, she has often been compared to another female singer from Iceland. Torrini has said that she’s tired of this comparison, saying that there’s little similarity in their musical influences, style, or production. Therefore, that Icelandic singer will not be named here. However, on first listen, you’d be hard-pressed not to think of the other singer known just by her first name. Yet, Torrini doesn’t pursue that sugary singer’s penchant for octave busting bursts. Torrini had explored more electronica elements on her past album, but Fisherman’s Woman sees her moving in a much more acoustic, less electronic folk mode. Again, this separates her from that Olympic singer from the same home country.

Songs like the aforementioned “Nothing Brings Me Down,” “Sunnyroad,” and “Heartstopper” can been driving, even while they’re plaintive. There’s not a throw down rocker in the whole album, but that doesn’t mean this is music for naptime. Torrini’s music provides the same kind of wakefulness you get from staring out at the waves crashing against the beach on a cloudy, gray, windy day. The gray gloom might send you back inside to hide beneath a blanket and your pillow, but there’s something compelling you to watch the power of wind and water, something compelling your eyes to remain alert as the wind burns your face. Torrini keeps your heart alert, realizing that out of the gloom and sadness that might make you want to sleep away the day that there’s hope and light. There’s glimmers here and there.

Like with Stevens’ music, the songs doesn’t really build much beyond the opening pulse, but Torrini brings emotional clarity and climax anyway. On “Today Has Been OK,” there’s so much loss—“Without you here the seasons pass me by,” “This life has been insane.” The chorus line, “Today has been OK,” seems like a passive acceptance of anything that befalls you, but Torrini takes the line and makes it be a defiant resistance to turning all things dark. There’s no scream or yell; there’s no bombastic drums or distorted guitar charge. Yet, you know that no one is going to take away the OK.

Perhaps it’s no mistake that Torrini’s music brought that image of watching the waves crash on a windy day. For one thing, it’s a windy, gloomy day here on the shores of Lake Michigan, our inland sea. For another, though, this is music made for the widow’s walk, high atop of fishing village house. “Fisherman’s Woman” stares out at those waves, knowing both the lonely worrying about her man “on the sea, where you have to be months at a time/working hard in the day/your hands cracking from the cold and the salt.” Yet, Torrini sneaks in little sexy jazzy gestures in the song, “with the brightest red lipstick” on her lips, ready to be together as a couple again.

Thank you to Emiliana Torrini, Rough Trade, and the Sanctuary Records Group for the review copy.


Sanctuary Records Week CD Giveaways!
From April 22-27, there will be chances to win Prize Packs courtesy of Sanctuary Records Group and Music Spectrum.

Today’s Prize Pack:
Adam Green’s Gemstones and an autographed Buddahead poster
Pack will include a Music Spectrum bumper sticker.

Antonio from Portgual won by emailing me with the name of the unnamed singer to whom Emiliana Torrini is often compared. (Answer: Bjork)

Thank you to the Sanctuary Records Group, Rough Trade, Gigante Media, and Special Ops Media for the review copies and giveaway CDs for Sanctuary Records Week.