Day 0928 - La Revancha del Tango

Gotan Project "La Revancha del Tango" (2001)

Gotan Project is another artist where I was familiar with the name but had totally the wrong idea about what sort of music they played.   I assumed they were some kind of indie/alt-rock group.  Not sure if that was based on some vibe I was getting from their name or whether I was getting them mixed up in my head with some other act like Gerling.

The group are nothing like that though.  Much like Suba’s “Sao Paulo Confessions” (day 879) reinvigorated Bossa Nova music through modern electronic interpretation and instrumentation; Gotan Project’s “La Ravancha del Tango” (roughly translated as ‘Tango’s Revenge’) does the same with Tango music.

As with “Sao Paulo Confessions” this album/artist take the genre and produces a music based in the electronic genre but retaining certain familiar aspects, like rhythms or instruments specific to its chosen genre.  One of these instruments is the bandoneon (kind of a small accordion) which I love and has a brilliant sound.

I really enjoyed this album.  It does a really good job of modernising the Tango sound, while still retaining some of its fire in tracks such as “Santa Maria (del Buen Ayre)” and “Una Música Brutal”.

Day 0918 - Punishing Kiss

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.

Day 0559 - Rain Dogs

Tom Waits "Rain Dogs" (1985)

If "Swordfishtrombones" was a drunken left-turn down a dark alley, populated by an assortment of weird and unusual characters; "Rain Dogs" is Waits deciding that he likes the alley-way and setting himself up in his spot around the trash-can fire.

The beat poetry and drunken piano ballads are largely gone in favour of stories about the aforementioned odd characters, backed by honking horns (that occasionally drift into New Orleans jazz territory) and interesting melodic percussion.   Regular John Zorn collaborator Marc Ribot provides guitar for the album with playing that ranges from jazzy surf and twangy lead, to abrasive avant sounds, and everything between.  The music includes remnants of his bar-room piano balladry, and even some country and western, but mostly it's a whole new world.

Waits' voice ranges from his newly adopted barking shout, to a gravelly croon, occasionally even dabbling in a sort of affected nasally cabaret vocal.