Indoor Universe

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:41:07
Personnel includes: Paula Frazer (vocals, guitar); Carrie Bradley, Cythia Wigginton (violin); Jason Kleinberg (viola); Matt Fish (cello); Pete Main (clarinet, alto saxophone); Graham Taylor (trumpet); Glen Swartz (French horn); Patrick Main (keyboards, background vocals); Jeff Palmer (bass); Matt Torrey (drums, percussion); Jim Lindsay (drums); William Winant, Danny Heifetz (percussion); Wendy Allen (background vocals). Personnel: Paula Frazer (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, background vocals); Patrick Main (acoustic guitar, piano, harmonium, organ, background vocals); Cynthia Wigginton, Carrie Bradley (violin); Jason Kleinberg (viola); Matt Fish (cello); Pete Main (clarinet, alto saxophone); Graham Taylor (trumpet); Glen Swarts (French horn); William Winant (vibraphone, cymbals, timpani, gong); Danny Heifetz (marimba, glockenspiel, timpani, tubular bells); Jim Lindsay (drums, snare drum, percussion); Wendy Allen (background vocals). Audio Mixers: Greg Freeman ; Spencer Jackson. Recording information: Division HiFi; Talking Machine Co., San Francisco, CA; Tiny Telephone. Photographers: James Kim; Paula Frazer. Unsurprisingly, given her wide-ranging artistic focus since the start of Tarnation, Indoor Universe isn't so much a new direction for Paula Frazer as simply a further consolidation of her strengths, at once drawing on the sheer variety that she enjoys working with while still maintaining a key central vision. Her rich, classically country vocals again ground her music in a sound of mythic America, as much as, say, the singing of her fellow Bay Area musician Chris Isaak, and like Isaak, she quietly, carefully combines things into an all-encompassing style. If anything there might also be a hint of the Walkabouts' similarly open-eared encapsulation of approaches -- a song like "Gone" touches on everything from Gene Pitney's operatic pop drama to Burt Bacharach's supreme easy listening and a hint of post-punk guitar atmospherics. Her backing musicians this time around are among her best choices yet, with Patrick Main being the key collaborator, his work on keys and occasional percussion often providing the lead melody for many pieces. "That You Know" helps set the album's overall tone with its dreamy evocation of Nancy & Lee Western melodrama (and there's no question Frazer can knock the socks off Ms. Sinatra vocally), haunted strings adding to the final impact even as her voice winningly cuts across them. For all that, there's a lot of implicit theatricality to much of Indoor Universe -- check out "Deep Was the Night" for another stellar example -- and many songs aim for a gentler approach, even when the lyrics are a touch more barbed, as on the end-of-the-romance "Think of Me." At points things are downright delightful, like Main's playful introduction to the early-'60s tearjerker-tinged "Not So Bad, But Not So Good," one of Frazer's best all-around performances (credit as well to Pete Main's mid-song clarinet break). ~ Ned Raggett
録音 : ステレオ (Studio)