Reach Inside Yourself and Touch Someone
If you've been hankering for a CD of unconventional songs of love, volume 3 of Louisville is For Lovers stands a good chance of satisfying that hunger...that desire...that need. With fifteen artists performing one song each and interacting a bit along the way, there's a little something here for just about everyone.
The Gallery Singers open the disc with a catchy tune called, "The Things You Say When You Don't Even Know It." It's a good thing (and I mean this sincerely) to have a vocalist who sounds like Jonathan Richman singing through a walkie-talkie. The lyrics even sound Richmanesque and it's a great way to start the CD.
Tara Jane O'Neil and Kristina (of Half-Seas-Over) offer "Enter This Homo House," a pretty little number that's also quirky because it sounds as if they're playing two songs at once. The pipe-banging percussion seems to bang around in its own world but does manage to keep time for the pretty song that's wrapped around it. Second Story Man's "Babies Come from Birds" begins what I like to call the "quiet section" of the disc. "Babies..." sounds like the Monkees jamming with the Beach Boys. It is a really pleasant tune and one of the most enjoyable of the disc.
"There's Something About What Happens When We Talk," performed by Mary Feiock and Bonnie Billie (a.k.a. Will Oldham), is a lovely tune. I'm not sure about the lyrics, but emanating from the music and vocals is the sense of the acknowledgment of chemistry; an intimate, spiritual connection between two people and that's good enough for me.
Irina's "No Relations" closes the quiet section of the disc with a couple of minutes of soft, overcast guitar strumming and then begins a louder section of the disc, filling the rest of the same song with primal scream vocals and harsh guitars. The Shipping News' entry, "Say it to My Face," sounds like they've been drinking from the same glass as Steven Wilson (www.nomansland.deMondayco.uk). Heavy guitars and sustained feedback/electronic noise accompany the somewhat dour melody of "Say it to My Face," recorded live for inclusion on this compilation.
The Heels' "I Want it" brings us a few dark, fun minutes of pogo-worthy organ-driven punk pop that could be straight out of 1977. From the Party Girls, Ronnie Mack contributes the dirge, "All My Friends Die Young." While that song has my vote for most conspicuous oddball of the disc, it is also beautifully written, performed and Dylanesque, evoking the emotion of `Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Elliott's "This Program is Not Responding" should satisfy all your electric-musical-instruments-sanctuary needs as you listen to the interplay and sonic flights of all the electronic creatures within this soundscape.
It would've been a worthwhile experiment to make a segue from Boundless & Starstruck's heavily percussive spaceship-travel song, "Need You Here," into Seluah's even spacier and hypnotic "Black Dress Revolution." Still, placing those interstellar musical journeys back to back was a good move. Starkiller's mellow rocker, the Xanax-like "Problems of Life," closes the disc; appropriately so, as you can actually see the credits scrolling up a screen at the end of a good film as you listen to the song. (Well, if you have an imagination you can see it.) It's the kind of song that doesn't get old after listening to it repeatedly.
In a music nutshell, the good outweighs the bad and there really is no ugly here. The cost is also much less than most CDs containing more than an hour's worth of music. For more information, dance on over to www.doublemaltmusicnews.net.