At Just over a decade since her eponymous debut album, “Nine objects of Desire” album shows that none of the interesting wordplay of that collection has gone.
Now the music has more of a sophisticated feel than the debut had, this is the influence of her now ex-husband Mitchell Froom. Along with the drum work of Jerry Marotta, this player has worked for the likes of Robbie Robertson, Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan and Ron Sexsmith in his long and varied career as a session man.
His drum work against the keyboard playing of Mr Froom creates the perfect foil for the lyrics and vocals of Ms Vega.
The first thing that I noticed about this album was how “big” the sound is, every sound that matters is larger than normal. I don’t know if that’s the way that Mitchell Froom’s partner in recording, one Tchad Blake who has also worked in past on recording sessions by Los Lobos and Ron Sexsmith, has recorded and mixed this album but the overall sound of the whole collection is excellent.
The resulting recording sessions have been mastered by another of my favourite audio wizards one Bob Ludwig.
As the opening song begins “Birthday (love made real)” the passage of time that separates this album from the debut of 1985 disappears, the familiar wordplay that attracted me to the artist in first place is still there but now the music now lives up to the words. The sound of the tracks continues the feel and sound of the previous album “99.9°F” with the same layers of percussion and keyboard sounds.
The best example of this on the album for me is the track “Causal Match” with it’s use of a “drum loop” drums and percussion and huge sounding keyboards against the chorus of “A Casual Match, In a very dry season, Fire and ash, Is the season’s yield”, a very impressive song that’s only second to the track that was released as a single “No Cheap Thrill” has all the elements in huge amounts to spare. If the song had been played more on “Day Time” radio the track would have been a huge hit in my humble opinion.
The last 3 tracks on the album are more like the style of her Debut album, more folk than funk of the new style.
In less than 40 minutes with these 12 vignettes, Suzanne Vega has covered more subjects than some more popular artists do in a whole recording career, this is album not to be over looked by music fans…
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Suzanne Vega, what a blast from my past! I used to listen to her when i was about 17(and that was not yesterday!)
Great review, Nicola
RICHADA 09.05.2005 21:01
Yes, i too am rapidly becoming a Suzanne Vega fan, she crept up on me somewhere around the middle of last year, we'll be looking out for this album for sure - thanks for a great review!
Averilla 09.05.2005 16:44
Yet another great album, you have very good taste. Av xx
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