Tanita Tikaram - An Introduction

This is a rehash of an old post in my blog but since I keep raving about Tanita so much, I thought I'd spread the light around...do check her music out and let me know...

Tanita who? Tikaram??? Sure, I don’t expect you to instantly recognize this name like Britney Spears or JLo. But behind this exotic name is an equally exotic persona that stands for deep lyrics, haunting melodies and a heavenly voice.

Tanita was born to a Fiji-Indian father and a Malaysian mother. Her father was in the British army posted in Germany. Music was an integral part of her family and she grew up on a staple diet of Soul and Country music of the ‘70s. When she was twelve, her family moved to England. Not able to adjust to the change in her surroundings, Tanita took solace in music. By time she turned sixteen, she was writing her own songs.

After school, Tanita took up a day job to finance her demo tape which found its way to Paul Charles, a noted promoter who is also a well known novelist now. Paul saw Tanita perform at a local night in London and immediately signed her up. In the summer of 1988, she released her first single 'Good Tradition' which climbed to the top ten. This was followed by a full length album Ancient Heart. The album, dipped in Jazz influences, had a long list of noted musicians contributing to it, most notably Rod Argent (of Argent) and Peter Van Hooke (of Mike + the Mechanics) who also produced this album. The album was an instant success selling over 4 million copies around the world and launching her into instant fame. Tanita was only eighteen then. Ancient Heart, also considered her best effort, gave the world 'Twist in My Sobriety', a classic that singularly catapulted her into greatness. This deep haunting song still remains a firm favorite among her fans.

Her next two albums, The Sweet Keeper and Everybody's Angel, firmly established Tanita as a singer/songwriter par excellence. She began her career as a producer with her 1992 release Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. She was soon a much sought after collaborator, working on several high profile projects including one for BBC. Her busy schedule restricted her live performance but she kept releasing albums at regular intervals. Each exploring new depths of human emotion and intellect. Sentimental, released early this year, is her sixth studio album after a long break of 7 years. Her last album was Cappuccino Songs release in 1998.

Over the years Tanita Tikaram has consolidated her reputation as a performer with immense talent and capability with a devout and loyal fan following. Her music is not for the casual ear, it requires dedicated listening and an inclination towards intelligent Jazz oriented music. If you are looking for music to soothe you and stimulate you at the same time, you may want to pick up an album from this incredible artiste. Start with Ancient Heart and work up to other albums chronologically, that is the only way to absorb her music as it grew and matured over the years.

Discography

Ancient Heart (1988)
The Sweet Keeper (1990)
Everybody's Angel (1991)
Eleven Kinds Of Loneliness (1992)
Lovers In The City (1995)
Songs From An Invisible Woman (1995)
The Best of Tanita Tikaram (1996)
The Cappuccino Songs (1998)
Sentimental (2005)

Get the complete discography here
Tanita Tikaram's official website

Damien Rice - B-sides - A Review

When do you think an artiste should release a B-sides album?

Going by the usual norms and of course, wiki, it is mostly when
A) An artiste wants to release an alternative version to the popular tracks of their A-side album – Remember the Michael Kamen & San Francisco Symphony backed version of ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and other tracks of theirs in their S & M album
B) He/she/they can’t fit in a few tracks because …well… they just don’t fit!! Stylistically, conceptually, thematically …Whatever be the reason, they just don’t go with the other tracks in the album
C) The tracks are just plain not good enough to be part of a full length album. Sure, at some point of time, when you garner some amount of fame and fan following – you can release these tracks as part of a rarities collection and get away with it.

Now to my second question, is there a right time to bring out a B-side album? In the sense.. at what point of time in the career of an artiste should he/she/they bring out an album?

I do believe that a whole lot of time should be spent in putting together a B-side album. If strategically placed, positioned and produced, it can work wonders for an artiste. Having said that, this aspect is nowhere as relevant as the quality of tracks which is going to constitute to the B-side album. Case in point – Gloria Gaynor ‘s breakaway disco hit – ‘I will survive’ – was originally a B-side to the supposedly ‘radio-friendly’ A-side song called Substitute. We all know what became of that!

So going by this logic, is it justified that one of the most promising singer/song-writers and one of the most haunting voices to reckon with in the recent times , releases a B-side before he brings out a much anticipated sequel to his sensational debut album? Or is it just a ploy to keep his legion of astounded critics and rapidly growing fan base at check so that he can buy time to follow-up the tall order that he has set? Or much much worse….is he just a one hit wonder?

Yes, folks, I am talking about Damien Rice. His debut album “O” has brought even me, who is a couple of decades behind in her folk singing music, to her feet. It brought with it a lot of hope regarding the music of the current era. His songwriting style was intensely personal and hence emotional and his voice incredibly raw, impeccably honest and extraordinarily powerful. A popmatters review says this about Rice’s first album –

“O was a triumph of the songwriter's craft, and anyone who found themselves lost in the tumult of a failing relationship last year, locked indoors with O on repeat for an endless successions of days, will likely side with me on this. O took an eternal and over-burdened theme -- love gone sour -- and made of it something fresh, something at once pared-down, simple, and yet emotionally complex. With this work, Rice added a page to the catalogue of romantic despair, creating a new, present-day Blue.”

A present day Blue? Now, normally I would have cringed at a comparison like that. But I am totally smitten by this man's music….and how! If you haven’t checked out “O”, please do so. It is my most humble and ardent plea! Please!

Now – coming to his second album – B-sides. Well, the good part first – I do believe there are traces of the emotional upheaval that he inspires due to his expressive voice. The opening track “ The Professor and La Fille Danse” has flashes of his angst-infused brilliance and but overall, it still lacks a grasping force, which I have come to expect out of any of Rice’s works. His song-writing luster suffers a setback a great bit here and gets worse through the course of the album. This song is devoid of Lisa Hannigan’s backings, but does have some random scatting and French verses which I tried to decipher with my rusted high school French, but in vain. The original demo of "Lonelily", which ensues, does not any real energy, unlike the next track, the live and unplugged version of “Woman Like a Man”. But for me, trying to express the rage and resentment theme through coarse language did not work for me. It is almost as if he wanted to keep the anger factor making up for a really crappy track. "Moody Monday" is off-beat in a reflective sort of way and might be worth a few rounds of listen. What then follows are four alternative versions of his A-side tracks – A live version of “Delicate”, an instrumental rendition of “Volcano” trailed by an original demo of the song, before ending with a remix of “Cannonball”. All of these are not distinctly different from their excellent “O” versions – and on an average, not worth album space. Out of this, the 97 demo of ‘Volcano' probably qualifies as my favorite piece of their otherwise very ordinary and quite avoidable album. Now, whether this version appeals to me because of the familiarity aspect (considering I have played it umpteen times as part of “O”) or whether it , any which ways, has that magnetically alluring pull – I do not know. But the delicately emotional overture of the song and the unabatedly evident flair of the songwriter is very stark in this track. And somehow this feeling is the biggest takeaway from the album, as far as I am concerned. It somehow leaves me with something to hold onto – something that reassures me that such not so easily found brilliance cannot die a quick death – something that makes me hopeful for his next release.

Half of the album dedicated to not-so-mentionable b-sides and the other half to even less mentionable different versions of original tracks - It is no rocket science that this is not a recipe of a sure shot record success. I would have rather waited for a half a dozen years before his next album – than having to be exposed to the commonplace compositions of a potentially great musician.

On a not so arbid note....

This is one review you just have to read.

http://blogs.epicindia.com/leapinthedark/2006/06/
cd_review_double_dynamite_sam.html


NP : Place to be - by Nick Drake from the album Pink Moon

On a totally arbid note...

Caught up with the video premiere of " I will follow you into the dark" out of Death Cab for Cutie's album 'Plans'. This one's directed by Jamie Thraves, the same dude who directed Coldplay's 'The Scientist'. Nice one this....

I gotta say - IMO, Death Cab has given one of the catchiest line in a long long time - y'know, the sorts that immediately put a smile on your face that somebody can get away with something like that.. It goes something like "You are so cute when you are slurring your speech..." (Okay okay..so go ahead and judge me! Boo!)

Damn, if I had a nickel for everytime somebody can use a line like that and not get a reaction like the one on your face right now! :P

NP : Take me back - The Vines from the album "Vision Valley"

Gig Review - Taxiride @ Velocity

With Mr. Monsoon tucking himself blissfully in the clouds, I was thankful for an equally blissful evening minus the soggy shoes and the disheveled hair on the first evening of June. After gorging ourselves with the divine Noorani butter chicken (have to admit the divinity was to a certain extent caused by my wallet being spared of a strip-tease session :D), me and the-artist-formerly-known-as-the-vocalist-of-Sledgehammer headed our way through the red carpet. Now agreed, we are not your average red carpet material, but hey – this ain’t no average red carpet. For one, it made its way through the ground floor of a dilapidated building in the middle of Tardeo and during the course of the few yards that it was spread over, it presented us with a glimpse through translucent doors to the ghastly world of the living zombies. No, no – we didn’t sign on any ride through some simulated Horror House thingie- That probably measures nowhere near as scary as the sight of the graveyard shift team making up the back office call center for some shoe company in Wisconsin. Yanyway, the point to be noted is the weird setting of the once-happening club in Bombay. Two storeys up – we are there, almost on time – 10.30 to be precise.


The place was pretty packed there when we got there – almost armed to the brim with a predictable blend of people considering the music/band at hand – 1. The omnipresent Poseurs – who can be caricatured on a average as Limp Bizkit Tee clad high-schoolers, trying desperately to sport Newsted-ish goatees, as if to announce vehemently that they have indeed crossed puberty 2. The disc-hopping “I-bet-Taxiride-is-a-once-were-boyband” dhinchik crowd playing peek-a-boo(b) in halter tops, bought with that allowance that Daddy gave them 3. The rollicking expats hoping to do a l’il Melbourne in Mumbai (uuuggghhh..that name!) – they possibly would have been the only category of people hitting the bar (Safe bet – don’tcha think? The first set of people are probably broke enough to count the chillars for the train ticket back home, And the second lot wouldn’t want the extra 10 calories that their Breezer would contribute to their 24 size waist..) and of course...4. The “remind-me-once-again-as-to-why-we-are-here” folks – which I would like to think comprised of only the two of us!! (Thank God for that gift called blatant categorization, eh?..)

Now, moving to the actual gig – we nudged past the aforementioned ( :D) set of people to get a coupla spots near the stage. I soon found myself in the best seat in the house – on the stage! Yeah – there was a small projection to the main part of the stage to the right – they had luckily placed the monitor a little ahead, giving me just enough and more room to rest my ass. The DJ, right now, was spinning the usual suspects for filler tracks at a rock gig – generous sprinklings of RHCP, Nirvana and the likes. You get the picture.

The speakers then blared an announcement, that I had been dying to hear – that Taxiride would be up first (And that I didn’t have to endure a full set list of Pentagram first…).

And then they got on stage – the lads from down under. They opened the set list with “O yeah” – which has consumed enough air share (on VH1) and hence ear share of the audience. We were hooked on from the word go – the attitude of everyone on stage was extremely casual – that in no way means, that they were slack. They were relaxed and at ease. We sorta joined in on the fun cooing along the chorus and for most parts the actual verses of the track too. What struck me immediately was the fact that the stark contrast in my perception of their music when seeing them alive as against hearing their record. I had totally thrashed their album (you can read it here ), but I gotta say – they have to be given at least some credit. True it isn’t some earth shattering stuff and what’s more true – I will probably not be a regular at spinning their record – But that’s only because their music is not the kinds which are right up my alley. These guys were very tight – they worked within their scope of the musical territory and they were actually good. What sounds as simple and commercialized pop-rock turned out to be a quite complicated conjugation of some solid bass grooves, some intense drumming and some brilliant stuff on the guitars both by the lead guitarist (Tim, I guess his name is..) and Jason Singh – not to mention the quintessential harmonies forming the backbone.

They were probably quite pleased at the kind of sing alongs that the track “O yeah” received. They launched into some tracks of theirs – most of it I hadn’t heard before, considering I just own Axiomatic. The tracks out of Axiomatic that they did play and which I did manage to recognize were – everything + nothing, (possibly the pick out of the CD for me)stone etc. Jason did utter some niceties on him coming back home or half home or whatever, on India and Bombay ete etc. Bleh! It was quite lost on us actually – possibly because either I was exchanging notes with the boyfriend character about their tracks or I was little distracted by the antics of the aunties standing next to me or I was much more distracted by that dude of a bassy that they have. (I was sitting right under his nose – I think I manage to extract a couple of smiles from him…Okay, okay – I did say “I think”!!!).

They also happened to catch themselves on the mounted TVs thanks to the marketing whiz kids at VH1 and Jason acted quite surprised by it. If only he knew that their two singles out of Axiomatic have, in all likelihood, been aired much more in the past few months than all the music videos of the all the other Australian rock bands put together…(Actually, maybe we should leave INXS out.. I do remember the repeated show casts of one of their singles when the band was making fools of themselves on that vocalist casting show..). He, half-rhetorically, questioned whether we have seen their new single – "What can I say?" Boy! Have we?! Anyway, what ensued was another round of karaoking with the stars – which seemed to get the band quite enthused. They did a coupla tracks after that and before we know it, the intros of the band are going around and they are walking off stage!!! I joined in on the naatak of the “one more” chants – except that it turned out to be a collective half whimper. The guys returned though – visibly embarrassed for having to go along with this ridiculously mundane tactic. This time, I felt I owed them a proper encore/track request – so I did belch out one of the tracks that I do remember out of their album. But they would mostly mistaken that for another “woohoo” from my end. I did a lot of that during the evening – consolidating my position as first-liner!!

As for the story of my crush on Jason Singh, that predictably came to a screeching halt. My first impression of him when he walked out on stage was that he looked like an un-bloated version of that dude Sanjeev Kumar (out of the Kumars at No.42). Your next door Punjabi Munda kinds – with the gelled hair combed back and with not a hair out of place, adorning one of those V-neckers showing the cleavage of his clean shaved chest. So I shifted gaze and base to the bassy – one of those rugged rugby playing types with curly locks and all. Didn’t quite get his name though and the internet also seems to be dry regarding the band and their background. In any case – Jason was actually very good as a vocalist and did put up fantastic show. (I did manage to draw his attention for a fleeting moment during the course of a track and got a very cute smile as an acknowledgement). The drummer, who I did not pay much attention to, was pretty amazing and that’s the least that can be said of the lead guitarist. T

he one thing that appealed to me the most about the band was the fact they seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. There was no rockstar attitude bullshit, no barefaced attempts at telling us to go pick up their albums, no over-the-top “I love this country” stuff . They were constantly talking to each other and having fun during the entire gig. And this was very infectious on us too!

The evening took on an bipolar turn when the Dadlani dude came out with the rest of his Pentagram Puppets. Dressed in a doctor coat proclaiming “Youth for equality” and the clenched fist symbol, his stage act was filled with a anti-reservation message manifesto that turned out to be quite hilarious. Wouldn’t you also wanna laugh when a being reminiscent of a full grown gorilla appeals to young monkey zombies by uttering some profanities about the political parties? They did pass out a subscription form for supporting this cause, which took the comic quotient up by a notch. We decided it ain’t worth to stick around and then end up paying a fortune in cab fare. So we left and caught the 12.42 back home.

All in all...quite a memorable evening!