Marianne Nowottny - Illusions of the Sun
(Camera Obscura)
Expanding to the enhanced-CD format for the first time, Australia's
premiere independent label combines an EP's worth of new and re-recorded
material from child savant Nowottny with 12 minutes of video footage from
a Washington, DC concert. The title track borrows its organ sound from an
old Strawbs' break, giving it a proggy air, while her voice comes on like
Nina Hagen with a headcold, singing in eight different keys at once. It
has a tendency to grate and distract from the compostion. "Bourbon Prince"
continues in this same vein, sort of like Lene Lovich-meets-Diamanda
Galas, and her Sybilian vocals sound like eight different women
contributing to the mayhem. This is not pop music by any stretch of the
imagination.
A vaudevillian piano backs Nowottny's singspeak non-sequitor lyrics on
"Rainy Days and Vinyl," where her musical ideas are again impossible to
grasp. Like a Chinese fire drill, the omnidirectional melody is everywhere
and nowhere... the musical equivalent of a Marx Brothers movie, with just
about the same surrealistic logic. "Mustard Seed" sounds like a bad
"Saturday Night Live" skit, and by song's end, Nowottny's fragile voice has
deteriorated into a bad Marlene Dietrich impersonation. But that's not the
worst of it: no, that honor would go to the finale, "Sweet and Low."
Atonal moaning verging on a painful bowel movement, typically non-sequitor
stream-of-consciousness lyrics, and angular music all lead up to the aural
equivalent of "Plan 9 From Outer Space."
I think Marianne should pick a style and stick with it—her current
asynchronous approach leaves me cold and confused. I've been reading
reviews of some of her earlier releases to see if I was missing some joke,
but apparently not. There are actually people who like this sort of thing,
and their defense is fairly similar to my offense. I guess some folks
appreciate out-of-tune vocals, non-linear musical lines, and nonsensical,
stream-of-conscious lyrics. If you are one of them, this may be your bag.
Me? I'd just as soon put this in a bag and bury it as far away from my CD
player as possible. Of course, if you read those reviews carefully as I
have, you'll notice the critic rarely comes out and says he likes the
record. It's this obvious obfuscation and smoke and mirrors that you can
expect to avoid in my reviews. If something is disappointing and not
worth investigating, I'll come right out and say it. I also think its
unfair to hide behind a non-review. I've spoken to a few friends who
also hate this record, but theyve elected to not review it at all rather
than publish their negative thoughts. I respect their decision, but think
this cheats you into thinking that everyone loves this since you havent
read anything negative, it must be good. The old "silence means agreement"
approach. So I'll just flap out here in the breeze on this limb by myself
and encourage you to borrow this from a friend of you're curious enough to
want to form your own opinion.
Camera Obscura has an amazing track record over the last five-plus years
and across over 50 releases. Every once in a while, there's a misstep and,
in my humble opinion, this is it—an anamoly in an otherwise impressive
catalogue that gets right back on track with their latest release from The
Lazily Spun (my thoughts on that one appear elsewhere in this issue). I
suggest you forget about this one and check that one out instead.
And the strangest thing of all is that Marianne lives about 20 miles from
me and I've been unaware of her existence until now. So if even the locals
don't "get" what you're on about, it's a sure indication that your
offerings are for a very limited, sophisticated, pooh-pooh, cogniscenti
and beyond the ken of a normal hick from the sticks like me.
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