UTE LEMPER - Punishing Kiss
Songs by Nick Cave, Elvis
Costello, The Divine Comedy, Philip Glass, Tom Waits, Scott Walker, Kurt
Weill
DECCA 466 473-2
[59.63]
Set aside the striking leather-clad Lemper-photo-fest that is the booklet
(heavens - reminds me of Karajan's posed photos dominating his late 1970s
DG Beethoven symphonies box) and you are left with a populist cross-over
album with some (achieved) aspirations towards the cabaret. The songs anthologise
a boundary-less song landscape and use texts which sidle up to intellectual
satisfaction. Lemper is great at sardonic, furious and bitter - sounding
(and looking) a little like Annie Lennox. The bland multi-tracked Passionate
Flight - soft of heart and soft of head - can be skipped. Essential Lemper
is to be found in Tango Ballad (Weill) as well as the sullen suffering
of The Case Continues (Neil Hannon and Joby Talbot - best track).
The accompaniment is orchestral with electronics, synthesisers, organ and
guitar depending on the song. They are quite varied from the boozey back
streets of some Argentine bar (The Part You Throw Away) to Scott Walker's
Scope J is minimalist and drifts Ophelia-like in a cooling hashish
dream. In Split and Tango Ballad Lemper is joined by the tobacco
auburn voice of Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy). There are quite a few tracks
that are heavily seventies (Split for example). Elvis Costello's
Punishing Kiss smokes and drifts drowsily in an alcoholic haze and
then goes for 1960s metropolitan commercial jazz. This is the sort of album
that anyone who has the classic recordings of Marion Montgomery (remember
her cabaret recitals with Richard Rodney Bennett at the Maltings, Snape?)
and Cleo Laine (strong recall of this singer in Tom Waits' Purple
Avenue) will appreciate strongly. The tango and bandoleon are the spiritual
begetters of You Were Meant For Me nicely introduced by Lemper singing
as if from an ancient scratched LP and sliding into the full modern sound.
Full texts provided as well as Ute Lemper's introduction.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
