Word: rider
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Ladies and gentlemen, Harry's Harbour is proud to present, under the Big Top tonight, Human Oddities," Tom Waits shouts at the beginning of The Black Rider. "Under the Big Top tonight, never before seen, and if you have a heart condition, please be warned...
...haunting style, and his eclectic musical arrangements, and is now free to do pretty much what he chooses. This freedom has given Waits the space to make some interesting decisions. (His last release, Bone Machine, was the strangest album he's put out in years.) And The Black Rider, Waits' new recording of his contributions to a Robert Wilson production, serves up more weirdness...
...Black Rider doesn't disappoint. Waits' trademark instruments are out in full force: bassoons, clarinets, accordions, organs, saws, boots, chamberlains, trains whistles...well, you get the point, and don't forget about his lurching melodies and strangely moving vocals...
Wits doesn't let the story get too much in the way of his songs. These pieces were recorded over a three-year span: some in conjunction with Wilson's work in Hamburg, some back in the U.S. with Waits' own band. At the core of Wilson's Black Rider is a Faustian tale of a peasant who makes a pact with the devil. The peasant gets a set of magic bullets, thinking they will enable himto win a marksmanship contest and with it, histrue love; however, the devil has different plans,and the poor peasant goes crazy when...
While The Black Rider does lag in somepoints--the melody in "Just the Right Bullets" isalmost identical to the theme for Night onEarth, and this sense of deja vu is especiallypresent on the rather one-dimensionalinstrumentals--the album is definitely a treat. Nomatter how much you're heard Waits, hissemi-Coherent ravings on The Black Riderstill manages to evoke a genuine sense ofunfulfilled and tragic longing...