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Naturally, "a musical tragicomedy in one act" is destined
to be as pretentious as cosmetic surgery for dogs. Hell, Grand
Piano is basically Pink Floyd's The Wall abridged,
complete with stage directions for any high school thespians willing
to give it a go. But if you have the stomach for drama, (as in
Human Drama) it's really fucking cool! Imagine Johnny
Indovina performing a slew of theatrical Tom Waits
numbers.
Essentially, this is a host-your-own-murder carried off in music
noir. Simple, moody acoustic guitar sets the stage for a Swans/This
Mortal Coil foray. Stephen Wisienewski stars as the
warbling narrator, his vivid descriptions occupying several depths
of interpretation. Just as the trade language Lingua Franca
was favored by normal folk of many cultures, Wisienewski avoids
the trappings of flowery words. Instead he uses simple language
to convey complex, well thought ideas. I was going to use the
example from the plot developing "Murder/Mystery" "They
washed their hands white with house paint/when the water did no
good/it ran down and soaked their shirts at the elbow/it made
a sticky seal like a dirty wound would." Then I opted for
"I'm dumb enough to believe what teacher says/she tells me
Christmas is real/and that an angel gets its wings/every time
they show it on TV."
It truly is a wonderful life when bits of The Bad Seeds
play host to Rob Dougan orchestrations on "A Kind
Of Dancing." "The Wrong Side Of Luck" is nearly
Queensryche's soaring scope and vocal operatics. The weakest
link (if there must be one) is the attempt to emulate Waits on
the blue-inflected "Things We Know For Sure." But ultimately,
the fantastic themes and thrilling dynamics create a great, if
brief, melodrama of Orson Well-ian merit. Now if we could
only bring back Esperanto.
-Ewan Wadharmi
Track List:
1. A Kind Of Dancing
2. Murder/Mystery
3. A Thousand Birds
4. The Wrongside Of Luck
5. Things We Know For Sure
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