Re: The Sensual World

[as010b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (andrew david simchik)]

In <a73dd525@waltham.columbus.oh.us> scasterg@waltham.columbus.oh.us (Stuart Castergine) writes:


>It is too soon for me to choose favorites other than the title track.
>The album doesn't grab me quite as immediately as some of hers
>have. Then again, it took me a long while to decide _The Dreaming_
>was the most fantastic album I'd ever heard. I do have this intuition,
>not based on any analysis, that one of the things that bothers
>me is that the album is in some strange way less mystical, less
>spiritual than her other work. Anybody know what I'm talking about
>better than I do?

My favorites on the album (besides the title track) include "Love and Anger"
and "This Woman's Work", which always makes me cry.  Obvious choices, but
valid ones.

I think the album is a lot more personal than her earlier stuff; there's an
introspective focus, kind of like on Gabriel's latest, "Us".  I love this
album personally, not only because it was my first Kate, but also because I
love the progression from beautiful (TKI) to bittersweet (L) to magical
(NFE) to powerful (TD) to epic (HoL) to sensual (TSW).  I love the other
albums, but none of them have the sweeping dusky majesty of TSW.  It's like
a big brown blanket of stars I wrap myself in whenever I hear it.  Three
things within which I find ultimate pleasure besides sex: food/drink, sleep,
and music.  This album is like one endlessly prolonged caress, one
infinitely extended orgasm.

Can you tell I like it?  :)

>And, I must admit, my enjoyment of the album has been lessened
>by talk that it shows some deterioration of her voice. I keep
>listening to tracks over and over thinking "Is she straining there?"
>"Is that tremolo intentional or due to a lack of control?" "Is
>the breathy delivery a coverup for raspiness?" I will feel greatly
>relieved if her next album (WHEN WILL IT BE?!) calms some of my
>fears and shows her voice to be intact and still the most amazing
>thing since God created sound. I'm hoping that this album simply
>wasn't a very good showcase for her voice, that she was using
>a certain style here that I'm just not meshing with yet, just
>as it took some people a while to get used to what she was doing
>on _The Dreaming_ compared with the high, ethereal vocals of her
>early albums.

There's a distinct possibility that her voice has seriously deteriorated. 
However, I also notice a profound change in her style which could also
account for it, which has, as you said, been taking place ever since "The
Dreaming".  Still, I think that whatever the change in her voice quality,
her technical abilities have definitely been increasing; she sounds more
sure of each note than she ever has, gliding over those weird runs and dips
in the melody with poise and control.

But damn it, somebody get those cancer-sticks away from her!  Now!  If she
ever reads this, I hope she realizes we love what she does for us too much
to love what she's doing to herself with those.  Not to mention the simple
desire to see a healthy human, especially one whom we love so dearly.

Drewcifer
>I think the next album can't help but be helped by just "turning
>down the volume on all that electronic background crap and letting
>me hear KATE!"
>---
>scasterg@waltham.columbus.oh.us -- Stuart M. Castergine        ---
>                I  still dream of Orgonon.                      |/
>                                                                |\
-- 
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*  Andrew David Simchik *  DISCLAIMER: I said it... 			   *
*  a.k.a. Drewcifer     *  			No one else would!	   *							   *
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