To use
Walker Percy
's phrase,
Peter Herbert
is onto something: he is the genuine article, a piece of work, someone who knows where he is going (or at least leads listeners to believe he does), and he's a chance-taker to boot. Here, he displays a remarkable ability to distort ever so slightly, with two separate projects spliced together in a single album. The first, called
"You're My Thrill,"
which constitutes the first five tracks, is a subtle warping of recognized
standards
that have been rewritten by
Herbert
for
chamber orchestra
. You recognize the lyrics but not all of the melodies, and even then the words take on strange meanings, almost like a person who finds himself suddenly immersed in a
Frederic Brown
parallel universe where nothing is quite what it seems. An 11-piece ensemble accompanies proper vocalist
Christine Tobin
as she articulates the seemingly familiar in slightly oddball though not illogical ways. The vocalist's serious demeanor superimposed over her jazzy, sometimes radical interpretations have the effect of a woman singing formal
opera
in the nude.
's arrangements bash the genders, incorporating the best of the
third stream
with elements of
classical
,
jazz
, and popular song. Just as fascinating are the final five selections, performed by a slightly larger group, where
"reflect[s] musically on different sound snippets, in this case sounds from human beings on the street [in New York City]."
lived in New York for 15 years, and he taped different voices. Here he collects some of those in which a problem in communications occurs and he calls the collection
"Communications Error."
A couple of the tracks capture homeless persons uttering oddball remarks; others are simply slices of life. Rather than focusing exclusively on the words, the way that
Gavin Bryars
might,
uses them as launching pads for surprisingly tasteful and often modest musical excursions ~ Steven Loewy