Demais Interesses - Madeleine Peyroux´Bare Bones

(Bare Bones)

A fabulosa Madeleine Peyroux, para este vosso escriba, ganhou o estatuto de diva, o que se traduz numa aquisição imponderada das suas criações, ossia: primeiro compra-se e, só depois, se aprecia.

A 10 do corrente mês, Peyroux lança o seu quarto álbum, Bare Bones:

«MADELEINE PEYROUX “Bare Bones” (Rounder) On each of her previous three solo albums Madeleine Peyroux kept the focus on her voice: a small, distinctive thing with all the weathered charm of a flea-market antique. Her new album, “Bare Bones,” features her singing no less purposefully than the others, but it presents her as more of a songwriter than before. Each of its 11 tracks has her name in the credits, and together they add up to a declaration of selfhood. As the title suggests, this is an album about core principles: love and solitude, rumination and survival. On songs like “I Must Be Saved” and “Instead,” Ms. Peyroux urges a strict focus on matters of the heart, imploringly or insouciantly. Elsewhere, on the title track and “River of Tears,” she tunes out the world to better savor her grief. And she takes asceticism to rather uneasy extremes with “Homeless Happiness,” which idealizes a life without shelter or possessions. (“No hurries, no worries for me,” she coos. Really?) Most of the songs were written with collaborators, notably the album’s producer, Larry Klein, whose soft touch can also be felt throughout. Along with Ms. Peyroux’s vocals and acoustic guitar, there are vintage keyboards and parts for mandolin, violin and pedal steel. It all feels tasteful, companionable and often saggingly dull. Perhaps a steelier singer could use this much gauze; for Ms. Peyroux, it’s Vaseline on the camera lens. But a few songs cut through, none better than “Love and Treachery,” written with Joe Henry and Mr. Klein. Here Ms. Peyroux combines concrete imagery with weighty pronouncement, evoking the style of Leonard Cohen, whose songs she has often covered. “But in your voice I’ll hear my own and recognize the crime,” she sings, softly but evenly. “That all your love and treachery has ended up as mine.”»