+Raffa+
Tuesday, November 08, 2005 11:36 AM
"Y KANT TORI READ" (1988) - Y Kant Tori Read
The so-called heavy metal debut, recorded with the band Tori joined while living in L.A. in the 80's, is named from her refusal to read sheet music at the Peabody Conservatory. Longing to be a rockstar and forced to forget about "the girl and the piano thing", Tori turns into a perfect rock-chick, with a "forceful, appealing voice" (Billboard) and writes part of the songs of the record, characterized by a pop-dance sound with some folk elements. Unfortunately, the album was a real bomb at the time and an awful experience for the former piano prodigy (Tori is still shameful when talking about it), although there are some really really good moments: songs such as "Cool On Your Island" and "Etienne Trilogy" are still famous among her fans and as praised as other songs she recorded as a solo artist (Tori still performs them live, even with electronic keyboards, Hammond Organ B3 and Rhodes). Other songs are very remindful of her solo work, such as the moving ballads "Fire on the side", "On the Boundary", and the delicate "Floating City" too (listen to that!).
Often compared to a pastiche of the earlier Madonna and Pat Benatar, most of the songs are maybe too enphatic and unconvincing, although not disagreeable. The cheery and sexy "You Go To My Head" would be the suitable soundtrack for a TV commercial, and "The Big Picture" (chosen as a single with "Cool On Your Island") is wonderfully ironic (don't you think?). A video with an unusual Tori, dancing and singing like mad:-), was also shot. Perhaps it's not her masterpiece, but it's still funny and pleasant to listen to. Original copies are not available anymore, but fans all over the world could find tons of bootleg recordings and MP'3 of it. Anyway, Tori was about to find her true voice...
The record includes artists such as Joe Ciccarelli, Steve Caton (who has worked as a guitarist in many Tori solo album), Kim Bullard, Brad Cobb.
+Raffa+
Tuesday, November 08, 2005 11:39 AM
"LITTLE EARTHQUAKES" (1992)
After the pain and humiliation followed to the failure of "Y Kant Tori Read", Tori approaches her piano again, and they seem to become one, while she decides to write introspective music, to respect her talent and inspiration - and mostly to be respectful towards herself, her feelings and needs as a woman and as a person.
Her solo debut is striking, shocking and moving at the same time: her amazing piano playing is mixed with an intense, multilayered, sensitive voice - her siren-like vocals are tender, sensual, angry, painful, childish and sweet, often in the same song or line - and with intimate, personal confession about sex, religion, love relationships, masochism, childish trauma, rebellion, guilt, shame, physical and emotional oppression, and much more.
Her songwriting is utterly original, poetic, harshly realistic and hopeful, her stories of private struggles and inner fights are both personal and universal ("Why do we crucify ourselveses\ every day\ I crucify myself\ and nothing I do is good enough for you\ I crucify myself\ and my heart is sick of being in chains… got enough guilt to start my own religion", she sings in "Crucify"), her audience is moved by songs like "Girl" ("She's been everybody else's girl\ maybe one day she'll be her own"), "Silent all these years" ("What if I'm a mermaid\ in these jeans of his with her name still on it\ hey but I don't care 'cause sometimes\ I said\ sometimes I hear my voice\ and it's been... here\ silent all these years"), "Winter", "Tear In Your Hand", "China", "Mother". But Tori also rocks with "Precious Things", "Leather", amuses and makes people think with songs about death, afterlife, spirits and ghosts, the love for life, ancient myths and mythology ("Little Earthquakes", "Happy Phantom"), and pain releasing ("Me and a Gun", sung without music, is about the attempt of rape she experienced in her early twenties). Psychanalisis, passion, anticonformism and sensitiveness, all in one record: a must in her career, higly recommended!
The album was recorded with former partner and long-time producer Eric Rosse in the tiny Hollywood apartment Tori lived in, with a very limited budget in a very limited time... they had to record guitars in the closets!!!:)
Tori herself called this album her "secret diary".[Modificato da +Raffa+ 18/11/2005 13.23]
+Raffa+
Tuesday, November 08, 2005 11:43 AM
"UNDER THE PINK" (1994)
Tori's second acclaimed solo album is as successful as the "little earthquakes", showing Tori as one of the most talented American songwriters of the 90's. The title comes from the thought that "underneath it all, we're all pink": "A very internal record, this. 'Under the Pink' is this world. Everybody's pink inside. If we tore all our skin off, we're all pink. It's what's within that interests me". In this album, Tori goes even deeper with themes such as religion, sex and love relationship, history and passion, intimate feelings and personal demons, but the main theme is the violence between women: one of her most famous single hits, the cryptic, baroque-country ballad "Cornflake Girl", focuses on that, like the extravagant "The Waitress", the bitter-sweet, music-hall-like "The Wrong Band" and partly the solemn, moving "Bells for Her", heart-breaking ballad about a broken friendship, played with a special carillon-like upright piano.
Her vocals are tenderly sensual, mature and intense, her piano playing is even more accurate and eccentric, her lyrics more and more obscure, full of metaphors and hidden references, but undeniably original and interesting: the distorted "God" sees God on a "lower" and sexual (!) level ("Do you need a woman to look after you? God sometimes you just don't come through"), the tender, sad "Baker Baker" is about not being emotionally available in a relationship, it doesn't matter how important it is or how deep you can love ("He says that behind my eyes I'm hiding\ And he tells me\ I pushed him away\ that my heart has been hard to find..."), "Past the mission", with its religious and mysterious lyrics, is "a strange love story". The record also deals with female masturbation and childish\teenage rebellion ("Icicle"), disappointment and betrayal (the beautiful "Pretty Good Year" and "Cloud On My Tongue"). But there's hope and encouragement too ("Space Dog", "Pretty Good Year" and "Yes, Anastasia", inspired by Anastasia Romanov, played like a classical piano piece).
You can't get enough to explore this under the pink world and things are not so simple like they may seem by reading here:-) Maybe initially it's not an easy work to listen to (not being as "catchy" and straight as "Little Earthquakes" in a way), but then you'll feel so drawn to this record that "Under the Pink" just seems another mile stone of her discography.
The album contains some of her most appreciated songs, such as "Cornflake Girl", "God", "Pretty Good Year", "Past the Mission", "Bells for Her", "Baker Baker", "Cloud On My Tongue", and was recorded in an old Hacienda in New Mexico. [Modificato da +Raffa+ 24/11/2005 10.08]
+Raffa+
Thursday, November 24, 2005 10:07 AM
"BOYS FOR PELE" (1996)
"I'm known as the girl who loves having tea with the Devil." Conceived as a walk though the darkness and the unconscious ("embracing the hidden, the ugly, the shameful", as she says when asked about the booklet image in which she breast-feeds a piglet), this knee-descent through hell leads to 18 new songs devoted to Pele, the Hawaian goddess of fire. With this record, Tori explores the darkest sides of her soul and her heart, but also the essence and femininity of herself... and every woman. "I was a rebel for such a long time... now I just want to be me." She struggles for self-esteem and indipendence from men and everybody else's personality, finally leaving self-denigration and self-destruction behind her. "I crossed the Styx river with that album, it lead me to improve my relationship with men." After the devastating, mutual break-up with Eric Rosse, she finds the fire of passion and the love for life again. "It's not a revenge record but a releasing record. I've been angry at myself, too, for getting into certain situations with men. Anger is healthy, but out of balance if it doesn't have compassion."
The new tracks - complex, multilayered and deeply obscure - are sometimes harder to listen to and much more challenging than any other record of hers. Nevertheless, the album is still considered her masterpiece from millions of EWF all over the world, partly thanks to songs such as Caught A Lite Sneeze (a solemn, intense ballad mixing strange beats, piano and harpsichord), Talula, Marianne (a striking song in which the extravagant, metaphorical lyrics tell about a friend's suicide), Twinkle, Father Lucifer, Beauty Queen\Horses (the opening track leading the listener through this inner, sometimes dreamy voyage: "They say that you demons can't go there\ so I got me some horses\ to ride on\ to ride on…"), In The Springtime of His Voodoo, Hey Jupiter (an heart-breaking ballad about the loss of dignity in a relationship and how painful the ending of it can be: "Guess it's me and me\ and this little masochist\ guess I thought I could never feel the things I feel... hey, Jupiter…"), Mr Zebra, Professional Widow (in which she plays the harpsichord as a rock instrument!). Her lyrics are even more cryptical, filled with simbols, metaphors, sexual allusions, mythts, poetry, religion, historical figures and so on. Her voice shows a new maturity, while she plays her Bosendorfer piano and other instruments such as the harpsichord and the Harmonium organ. The Sinfonia of London performs delicate strings and there are gospel choirs, church bells, horns, trumpets and bagpipes, too.
Often criticized of being "too long" and "too complicated", the cd has yet become a cult among her fans, helping a lot of people to find and respect their own beliefs, their personality, whishes, thoughts, gifts, qualities and faults... and most of all, their dark side.
A "special edition" of the cd was also released, containing the very popular dance-house Armand Van Helden Remix of "Professional Widow" instead of "In the Springtime of His Voodoo".
The cd was recorded between Cork (England) and New Orleans (Louisiana).
+Raffa+
Thursday, November 24, 2005 10:11 AM
"FROM THE CHOIRGIRL HOTEL" (1998)
Another painful experience - the miscarriage occured to Tori in late '97 and the subsequent loss of Tori and Mark's daughter after the third month of her pregnancy - brings the Muse straight back to Tori: "I passed from anger to pain. And the songs came crowdly. It's the same old story: when my life becomes empty, my inner world gets full of music". She adds: "The love that I felt for this spirit didn't go away. And I knew this love had changed me, because I had never really felt the capacity to love and the capacity to surrender".
On "From the Choirgirl Hotel" (conceived just like a hotel full of "girls", the new 12 songs, all connected to each another and yet living of their own life), Tori's under the spell of rock, ambient and electronics too: "This record got me through a real bad patch. But I can laugh with this record, and I can move my hips to this record, which is really good for me. It's very sensual - that's the rhythm".
Choirgoirl is filled with sophisticated, sometimes tribal arrangements, mixing electronic and rock instruments with her delicate, intense Bosendorfer piano playing and essential, poetic, personal lyrics, often compared to the intimate confessions of "Little Earthquakes". Her voice has never been so sweet, painful, sublime and sensual at the same time, showing a new maturity. The record deals with themes such as the loss of a child (the metaphorical, self-accusing Spark, Playboy Mommy, two of her most beautiful songs ever, with the heart-breaking ballad Northern Lad, a love tribute to her husband Mark), physical and psychological abuses (Black-Dove), guilt and desperate anger (Cruel, Iieee, Playboy Mommy), self-destruction, betrayal (She's your Cocaine) and abandon (Hotel), marriage (Jackie's Strength, recalling her own wedding day in '98 through the figure of Jacqueline Kennedy), sexuality (Raspberry Swirl) and addiction, rebellion towards religious beliefs and gods, sacrifice and death (Iieee, Pandora's Aquarium, Liquid Diamonds, Spark), but shows a more optimistic attitude towards life and what's to come: "There's a deep love on this record. This is not a victim's record. It deals with sadness but it's a passionate record - for life, for the life force. And a respect for the miracle of life".
Both considered "her masterpiece" and "her 'missed' masterpiece", the album was hugely praised by criticians and fans: the new tracks are hauntig, shocking, sincere and tremendously appealing, telling universal and personal truths in an unusual, utterly original way. The cd is well-balanced and contains experiments in different musical genres, gently leading the listener to the underwater world of the "siren trapped behind the glass". Her maturation as a musician and as an artist makes Choirgirl another must in her career.
Choirgirl was recorded at the Martian Engineering in Cornwall (England), where Tori lives with her husband Mark Hawley and their daughter Natashya Lorien (born in 1999).[Modificato da +Raffa+ 24/11/2005 10.12]