Patricia Barber - A Distortion Of Love (1992) [MFSL 2013] PS3 ISO + DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Patricia Barber's origins are commonly associated with 1994’s Café Blue and the follow-up, 1998’s Modern Cool. Both quickly established the singer/pianist as an immediate audiophile favorite whose rare combination of astute instrumental performance, daring originality, poet enterprise, intrepid vocals, and sculpted production announced her as an artist that both takes immense care in her music as well as in her sound. While largely unknown to many, 1992's diverse A Distortion of Love signaled the beginning of Barber's unfettered creativity.

Pianist and singer Patricia Barber's second album (and major-label debut) is a consistently interesting, but not always completely rewarding, array of original instrumentals, vocal standards, and surprise cover versions. The arrangement of "Summertime" that opens the program is eerie almost to the point of creepiness, and all the more effective for it: after a long instrumental prelude, Barber sings the lyrics over the most minimal bass-and-piano unison pedal point, her voice goosed with reverb and wailing softly like a ghost. "Subway Station #5," the original composition that follows, is nervous, jumpy, barely tonal, and moves niftily from a contrapuntal and polyrhythmic introduction into a straight swing section. The problem is that it lasts almost ten minutes, and by the seventh or eighth minute, its ideas seem pretty well played out. "Or Not to Be" and "Yet Another in a Long Series of Yellow Cars" suffer from similar treatment. But her singing on "You Stepped Out of a Dream" and, especially, her sweet and touching rendition of the soul classic "My Girl" are quietly spectacular. There's every reason to expect great things of her in the future.

Tracklist:

01 - Summertime
02 - Subway Station, No. 5
03 - You Stepped Out of a Dream
04 - Parts Parallels
05 - Or Not to Be
06 - Yellow Car
07 - Yet Another in a Long Series of Yellow Car
08 - I Never Went Away
09 - My Girl
10 - Be Myself

Personnel
Patricia Barber - piano, vocals
Wolfgang Muthspiel - guitar
Marc Johnson - bass
Adam Nussbaum - drums, shakers, cheap shoes, finger snaps
Carla White - finger snaps
Big Kahuna - finger snaps

Recorded on November 25-27 & 29, 1991.
Mastered by Rob LoVerde at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Sebastopol, CA.


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Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 2,37 GB
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