Word: simonizes
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...what? A selection of painful-but-powerful music from female musicians, detailing the trials and tribulations of adolescent uprooting and the love-hate mother-daughter relationship? That's exactly what we get. The soundtrack includes a smattering of love and/or loss songs, featuring Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb and Carly Simon (who, fittingly, is joined by her daughter in singing "Amity," an ill-conceived attempt at marrying folk, pop, a pinch of country and maybe a little blues). Loeb's "I Wish" and McLachlan's "Ice Cream" leave us wondering if the producers could have chosen something just a little more...
Interestingly enough, this is the first album the brothers Simon and Robin Lee have recorded together in the studio, their previous works having been created with one brother in Japan and the other in England. That internationalism pervades into the album, which layers African singing over jazz- and Latin-influenced four-four house beats, throwing in a touch of disco along the way. The production is flawless, and the percussion work and lush flute on "Kariba" is infectious. And their dance music credentials come to the fore when the album finds its groove, as it does with the deep vocals...
...Brustein: Mozart and Shubert and Bach; vintage Simon and Garfunkel; and The Grateful Dead, when I'm in the company...
...silver screen with pinstripes, and "Damn Yankees" filled a Broadway marquee. And who is the intangible god, the symbol of ultimate excellence in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"? The Great DiMaggio. And what written line better sums up the passing of a generation than Paul Simon's "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you."? Simon was bemoaning the loss of heroes in America. He didn't foresee the coming of Reggie Jackson and Ron Guidry, of Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams...
Think of a sedate Paul Simon tune, add some Beatles rhythm, a few assorted warbles, and an intermittent rough edge, and you'll have Spanish Dance Troupe, the latest album from Welsh band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. Or at least you'll have a bit of it. An eclectic selection of folk-pop, the tunes on Spanish Dance Troupe range from the upbeat and lyrically amusing to the laid-back and entirely instrumental...