Ute Lemper "Punishing Kiss" (2000)
I'd not heard of Lemper, but it seems she is an acclaimed actress as
well as being a singer. She had built much of her music career dipping
into the past, particularly interpreting the songs of Kurt Weil. For
this album she went with modern composers, though many of them had been
inspired by Weil too, so still within Lemper's comfort zone.
Thankfully it's VERY much in my wheelhouse too, with her modern
composers being such luminaries as Scott Walker, Tom Waits, Nick Cave,
Elvis Costello and Neil Hanlon. Hanlon's band the Divine Comedy
provide backing for much of the album and he duets with Lemper on a
couple of tracks.
The album is bombastic, theatrical and bursting with good music.
Though the individual composers' voices can certainly be heard (Lemper
even seems to mimic Costello's snarling crooning style on some of his
songs) there's a cohesiveness across the album, and Lemper owns each
song with a voice that ranges from gentle theatrical murmur through to
passionate howl, on the almost Bjork-esque opener "Little Water Song".
The Costello-penned title track is a fun highlight for me, but the whole album is really good. The finale is a brooding 10-minute late-era style Scott Walker dirge, which is quite frankly as good a way as any to close an album.
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