 |
| |
|
| |
Album Review
by SashaS
21-1-2003
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Mary Lorson & Billy Coté's piano pieces |
|
Mary Lorson and Billy Coté: 'Piano Creeps'
(Cooking Vinyl)
Mary Lorson & Billy Coté on a hypnotic cine-trip
As I cruise amidst the Floridian South Beach’s palm trees in the post-Crimbo days that are as stress free as Antarctica is empty, Mary Lorson and Billy Coté’s ‘Piano Creeps’ fill the air. The aerodynamics prevent wind from interfering with the topless listening in a Ferrari… I’m Crockett, from the ‘Miami Vice’! (OK, it is a PT Cruiser but the location is real.)
This music works perfectly with sunshine, surf, bodies, lifeguards, persons in many a uniform… (As they would on a rainy winter’s day back home.) The ‘Piano Creeps’ is a collection of instrumental pieces that fit a soundtrack to a T, with a scope, depth, variety of moods, evoking variety of (cinematic) images… Anyone familiar with the best of French and Italian soundtracks will not remain outside these tunes.
And, it is a creation of the twosome formerly known as Madder Rose, and partners in real life. The band begun in 1991 by Mary Lorson and Billy Coté to draw near-instant attention from audiences and industry for their natural marriage of savvy songwriting with innocent delivery. In the intervening years the principals have shown themselves truly committed to full-spectrum expression through music, leading us to ‘Piano Creeps’, a selection of compositions for films.
“Billy and I really enjoy the freedom of the instrumental format, since there is no requirement to ‘get to the chorus’ or stick to the pop writing songwriting roadmap”, explains Lorson in a press release. “‘Piano Creeps’ allowed us to exercise our arranging muscles, and try out as many ideas and instruments as we could record.” “Any out of tuneness, out of timeness or accidents during recording became intentional after the fact!” Coté adds.
Atmospheric, redolent and shimmering with beauty, ‘Piano Creeps’ almost guarantees spellbinding your senses from the opening ‘e guitar’. There are 12, mainly instrumental compositions – ‘Dig A Hole’, ‘See The Stars’ and ‘Americana #1’ being the exceptions – the album intrinsically weaves pianos, percussion, horns, weirdo guitars and analogue synths to create a dark sonic abstraction. A state that is very conducive to dreaminess or reaching for something more mind-enhancing.
Madder Rose released three full-length offerings on Atlantic and its fourth and final effort issued by the UK indie Cooking Vinyl in. Lorson then created the jazzy art-rock ensemble Saint Low, releasing an eponymous debut in August 2000 followed with ‘Tricks for Dawn’ in March of 2002. Dubbed “auteurist pop-noir, a jazzy, groove-loving take on the confessional pop song,” Saint Low is criminally overlooked. In meantime Coté’s dubby beatnik project, Jazz Cannon – using multiple vocalists and technologies to fashion lyrical urban soundscapes, released its debut disc ‘Amateur Soul Surgery’ in 2001 on Function8 Records of San Francisco, CA.
‘Piano Creeps’ is at times charmingly playful, at other mesmerisingly minimal… There is a track on it, ‘Newfield Baptist Church’, that makes me – an agnostic with aversion to institutionalised religion – wish to re-join. These ‘Piano…’ pieces are an impeccable listening, in every way, babes and cats. Ambiental lusciousness.
9/10
SashaS
21-1-2003
Mary Lorson & Billy Coté’s album ‘Piano Creeps’ is released 20 January 2003 on Cooking Vinyl
|
|
|
