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| Ute Lemper - Punishing Kiss Band: Ute Lemper Tracks: - Case Continues - Tango Ballad - Passionate Fight - Little Water Song - Purple Avenue - Streets of Berlin - Split - Couldn't You Keep That to Yourself - Punishing Kiss - You Were Meant for Me - Part You Throw Away - Scope J Love is a Punishment That's what Marguerite Yourcenar said: We are punished for not being able to remain alone. This wonderful album by Ute Lemper seems to be supported by this thought. This songs are filled with all the rage, anger, and bitterness a bad lover can bring to your life. Even though this sounds really harsh, the songs are really well crafted. The brilliant arrangements by Joby Talbot and the Felt participation of Neill Hannon - as the male co-star of a couple of songs - makes of this album an ourstanding piece of art. This recording represents for Lemper an expansion in her theatrical way to perform music, stepping into the fields of pop music. If you've heard her before you need to listening the dark "Street of Berlin", a lovers Fight called "Split", the murder of a Love in "The Cases continues", and the last thoughts of a drowning woman in "Little water song". Oh so very good I fell in Love with Ute Lemper when I heard a recording of her singing Kurt Weill's "Bilbao Song." I know she has her detractors, all of whom argue that other people are better at performing Kurt Weill. These people are idiots. This album came as a shock for me, as she Truly stretches out farther than I had expected. Yes, there is a Kurt Weill song here, taken from the Threepenny Opera, but it's rearranged like you've never heard before - with a drum and bass Loop churning underneath Lush strings and keyboards (but not cheesy keyboards, mind you). The rest of the album follows in a similar style, though the instrumentation does subtly Change for different composers' songs - most notably the addition of a bandoneon for the two Tom Waits songs. What is amazing about the album is the sense of continuity running through it, in spite its being a collection of songs of different people. The gem of the album, however, is Nick Cave's "Little Water Song," in which, over a beautiful string section, Ute Lemper lets her theatre training and singing mix freely - producing a performance that simply floors me. What else is there to say? She's simply amazing Divine Punishment What do you say about an album whose tenderest moments are provided by Tom Waits? "Punishing Kiss" is such an album, and Ute Lemper's best yet. The songs were all written for and/or carefully tailored to her eerily detached vocals by such artists as Elvis Costello (in the title song and two others), Philip Glass, Neil Hannon, Nick Cave (in a wistful little murder ballad called "Little Water Song"), Scott Walker (at his most allusive and morose in "Scope J"), and the aforementioned Tom Waits. Lemper even reprises "The Tango Ballad" from "The Threepenny Opera," in a scathingly arch duet with Neil (The Divine Comedy) Hannon, that provides historical context for this uncompromisingly harsh look at contemporary sexual mores. It's hardly the kind of album aimed at distracting pre-teens from the current crop of boy-toy groups and pneumatic nymphets, yet it might yield a hit or two, if radio jocks can recover from their shock long enough to play one of the three hauntingly recherche collaborations with Hannon: "The Case Continues," "Split," or "You Were Meant for Me." If you've never before heard Ute Lemper, this is the album to start with. But you might want to make a trip to the barber and get your pigtails cut first. Buy Ute Lemper Punishing Kiss at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.comJamster - the latest ringtones for your phone! |
