Phantasmagoria in Blue

Many vocalists spend their lives looking for the ideal duet partner, and you can never tell where you might find one. Its possible this notion was going through the mind of Mick Harvey, the producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, when he was asked by artist and filmmaker Amanda Acevedo if he was willing to collaborate on a musical project. Harvey met Acevedo while touring Mexico with Harvey, and when she sent him some private recordings shed made, he felt the project had potential even though shed never made an album before. 2023s Phantasmagoria in Blue is the fruit of Harvey and Acevedo exchanging audio files and later entering a Los Angeles studio together, and for a beginner, Acevedo acquits herself quite well. Harvey is an acknowledged fan of French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg (hes recorded several albums of his songs), and in many respects this sounds like Harveys variation on the recordings Gainsbourg made with Jane Birkin and Brigitte Bardot; his voice is less grainy and nicotine-ravaged than Gainsbourgs, but the casual melodrama of his phrasing and his interplay with the sensual, breathy murmur of Acevedos instrument is evocative and effective, and a superb complement for the elegance of Harveys string-laden arrangements. (Theres also a hint of the artful eccentricity of Lee Hazlewoods sides with Nancy Sinatra, fitting since this includes interpretations of two songs they cut together, "Indian Summer" and "She Wont.") The majority of the tracks on Phantasmagoria in Blue were originally recorded by other artists, though there are a pair of pieces Harvey and Acevedo penned for this album, and if this LP doesnt offer much of a clue in what future they may have as composers, as a vocal team, they evoke a sometimes theatrical but well-modulated air of longing, ache, and pageantry thats striking and memorable, like a collection of great romantic ballads for people who wear a lot of black and arent hung up on happy endings. Harveys faith in Acevedos gifts was well founded, and on Phantasmagoria in Blue shes as good a foil for his vocal style as anyone could hope. ~ Mark Deming