REVIEWS . . .
Dave Ormston
“This is not a Panic Room record"
I chanted this mantra as I prepared to play the songs of Luna Rossa's debut album ‘Sleeping Pills & Lullabies'. With Jon and Anne-Marie involved, and them consisting the heart of Panic Room, it was perhaps natural to ready my ears for 'Room-style cinematic rock, but I wanted to give this new project a listen with my preconceptions switched off.
It was soon clear that ‘Sleeping Pills & Lullabies’ is an even more intimate experience than Panic Room.
"The Dark Room" opens the album hauntingly, with Anne-Marie's bluesy vocal over a resonating cinematic piano. The production is almost transparent through headphones, offering a very immersive and intimate listening experience. A mournful dobro with Anne-Marie's vocal soaring through it offers a voice of southern rock. Oh, and the song unwraps beautifully. Anne-Marie is one of Britain's best singers in any genre right now, and Jon has almost as distinctive a "voice" on piano, so there is a familiarity with Panic Room so far, but this also has a new voice only hinted at in Panic Room songs.
"Heart On My Sleeve" is up next and immediately lifts the heart with the intimate sound of wood and gut, and voice. The air moves from the cello and piano directly into my ear. Anne-Marie offers a Karen Carpenter-ish intimacy. I think she clearly loves these lyrics because she is is no rush to push them from her mouth. This patient delivery bears huge fruit. The string quartet coda is perfect. This is a lavishly beautiful and imploring song.
So maybe this album caught me at the "right" time, but I am really digging it, when even "Skin" took me a couple of listens to get inside it. The third song "Mad About You" is different again: there is a funky, cuban vibe to this, where the double bass lays a bouncy floor for the angular, ringing guitar and breathy vocals to soar. So gently funky, that even * I * could dance to this, with my baby, in the right room.
By now I am realising that in no way is this "Panic Room Unplugged". These songs are built ground-up from English things; Celtic things; ancient things. wood and gut. They could be played to any audience of the last five hundred years and be relevent musically and in theme.
"The Book Of Love" I half recall has also been covered by Tracey Thorn. She is another wonderfully expressive vocalist, and this version does it no harm at all. Fine lyrics and a harp complements the piano riff beautifully.
"Scream At The Sky" hits a similar spot to "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins, and even "Sweetness Follows" in ways I can't put my finger on, but is not derived from either. Why don't more musicians use cellos? Such an emotive and beautiful footing for Anne-Marie's best vocal on the album. And she has never done a bad vocal... ever.
"Leaving For The Last Time" is the sound a broken heart makes. Touching, evocative, bittersweet, filmic. I can tell by now that there will be a few nights per year when only this album will do as a soundtrack. I'd better get my diary entries in....
I am trying to think of the last time a glockenspiel / vibraphone bridge garnished a song, but "Fight Or Flight" is beautifully seasoned by one! Once again cinematic, yet intimate, but not the SAME movie setting as the other songs. This album's producers didn't just find a great setting and leave it switched on all album, each song gets a fitting setting.
I often wondered what Tom Waits around "Blue Valentine" would sound like with an amazing female French singer: Now I know. "La Clef" is exactly as lush and imploring as Wait's best mid period work from "Foreign Affairs", or "Small Change" but is no pastiche. I can only order beers and Taxis in French, maybe I should learn. Lovely.
"Rise Up" is another acoustic guitar and cello driven piece, which is wonderful in my view. This combination offers the best ever backdrop to Anne-Marie's voice in my opinion, and when she does that "sneaking in-and-out-of-the-melody" thing with her voice it is absolutely unique in rock, and is totally beguiling. Loved that on "Skin", loving this even more.
"Thomasina Waits" appears again in "Cloud". Why has it taken so long for anyone to risk making these breathy, unashamedly emotive analog pieces? This is fantastic stuff. A wonderful piece, a risky, unconventional delivery perfectly achieved.
The album closes with "Gasp" : the most "Panic Room" of the songs on here. I can almost hear the band doing an electric interpretation of this live, but it will not be better nor more powerful than here.
Clearly I am a fan of Jon and Anne-Marie's work, but am no fan-boy completist. I never really "clicked" with their work in Karnataka for example and I don't own much of it, and looking back I can see this review appears gushing, but I can only speak as I have found. Over three listens, this is a ravishing album which may be the best thing either of them have ever made. Criticisms ? Well the pace doesn't vary that much over the whole album, but the settings change so much you never notice. And some of the songs are too short !! It's not "prog" but surely progressive: far more Massive Attack than Barclay James Harvest, and Tom Waits than ELP, a timeless album whose closest brethren are possibly Opeth's more delicate offerings like "Coil".
I truly hope Luna Rossa tour this album.
I chanted this mantra as I prepared to play the songs of Luna Rossa's debut album ‘Sleeping Pills & Lullabies'. With Jon and Anne-Marie involved, and them consisting the heart of Panic Room, it was perhaps natural to ready my ears for 'Room-style cinematic rock, but I wanted to give this new project a listen with my preconceptions switched off.
It was soon clear that ‘Sleeping Pills & Lullabies’ is an even more intimate experience than Panic Room.
"The Dark Room" opens the album hauntingly, with Anne-Marie's bluesy vocal over a resonating cinematic piano. The production is almost transparent through headphones, offering a very immersive and intimate listening experience. A mournful dobro with Anne-Marie's vocal soaring through it offers a voice of southern rock. Oh, and the song unwraps beautifully. Anne-Marie is one of Britain's best singers in any genre right now, and Jon has almost as distinctive a "voice" on piano, so there is a familiarity with Panic Room so far, but this also has a new voice only hinted at in Panic Room songs.
"Heart On My Sleeve" is up next and immediately lifts the heart with the intimate sound of wood and gut, and voice. The air moves from the cello and piano directly into my ear. Anne-Marie offers a Karen Carpenter-ish intimacy. I think she clearly loves these lyrics because she is is no rush to push them from her mouth. This patient delivery bears huge fruit. The string quartet coda is perfect. This is a lavishly beautiful and imploring song.
So maybe this album caught me at the "right" time, but I am really digging it, when even "Skin" took me a couple of listens to get inside it. The third song "Mad About You" is different again: there is a funky, cuban vibe to this, where the double bass lays a bouncy floor for the angular, ringing guitar and breathy vocals to soar. So gently funky, that even * I * could dance to this, with my baby, in the right room.
By now I am realising that in no way is this "Panic Room Unplugged". These songs are built ground-up from English things; Celtic things; ancient things. wood and gut. They could be played to any audience of the last five hundred years and be relevent musically and in theme.
"The Book Of Love" I half recall has also been covered by Tracey Thorn. She is another wonderfully expressive vocalist, and this version does it no harm at all. Fine lyrics and a harp complements the piano riff beautifully.
"Scream At The Sky" hits a similar spot to "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins, and even "Sweetness Follows" in ways I can't put my finger on, but is not derived from either. Why don't more musicians use cellos? Such an emotive and beautiful footing for Anne-Marie's best vocal on the album. And she has never done a bad vocal... ever.
"Leaving For The Last Time" is the sound a broken heart makes. Touching, evocative, bittersweet, filmic. I can tell by now that there will be a few nights per year when only this album will do as a soundtrack. I'd better get my diary entries in....
I am trying to think of the last time a glockenspiel / vibraphone bridge garnished a song, but "Fight Or Flight" is beautifully seasoned by one! Once again cinematic, yet intimate, but not the SAME movie setting as the other songs. This album's producers didn't just find a great setting and leave it switched on all album, each song gets a fitting setting.
I often wondered what Tom Waits around "Blue Valentine" would sound like with an amazing female French singer: Now I know. "La Clef" is exactly as lush and imploring as Wait's best mid period work from "Foreign Affairs", or "Small Change" but is no pastiche. I can only order beers and Taxis in French, maybe I should learn. Lovely.
"Rise Up" is another acoustic guitar and cello driven piece, which is wonderful in my view. This combination offers the best ever backdrop to Anne-Marie's voice in my opinion, and when she does that "sneaking in-and-out-of-the-melody" thing with her voice it is absolutely unique in rock, and is totally beguiling. Loved that on "Skin", loving this even more.
"Thomasina Waits" appears again in "Cloud". Why has it taken so long for anyone to risk making these breathy, unashamedly emotive analog pieces? This is fantastic stuff. A wonderful piece, a risky, unconventional delivery perfectly achieved.
The album closes with "Gasp" : the most "Panic Room" of the songs on here. I can almost hear the band doing an electric interpretation of this live, but it will not be better nor more powerful than here.
Clearly I am a fan of Jon and Anne-Marie's work, but am no fan-boy completist. I never really "clicked" with their work in Karnataka for example and I don't own much of it, and looking back I can see this review appears gushing, but I can only speak as I have found. Over three listens, this is a ravishing album which may be the best thing either of them have ever made. Criticisms ? Well the pace doesn't vary that much over the whole album, but the settings change so much you never notice. And some of the songs are too short !! It's not "prog" but surely progressive: far more Massive Attack than Barclay James Harvest, and Tom Waits than ELP, a timeless album whose closest brethren are possibly Opeth's more delicate offerings like "Coil".
I truly hope Luna Rossa tour this album.
