News: Undented Reviews String Quartet Vol. 2

Reviewing a purely instrumental album is difficult. What can you really say about it? Most people listen to instrumental music in the background, letting it wash over them subconsciously. What I learned after repeatedly trying to absorb String Quartet Tribute To Tori Amos Vol. 2: Pieces in this way is that one should NOT make the mistake of doing that with this album: I discovered that the more I sat still and listened to it, the more impressive it became.

When I saw the tracklisting for Pieces, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. While the album includes several songs that I love as Tori does them, I expected they would be dead boring worked up for string instruments, and I was prepared to flat-out hate the songs that are not favorites.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

While I have fallen in love with all but one or two songs on Pieces (and even the ones I don’t love I do enjoy), here are notes on my favorites…

“Sweet The Sting”: Funky Grappelli-style gypsy swing (complete with finger-popping). Classical music you can dance to. Frisky. Makes me want to roll around naked in a tub of chocolate pudding, but then again, what doesn’t?

“China”: Strangely enough, this song makes me feel like I’m driving through a Tuscan landscape at sunset. No small feat, considering I’ve never actually driven through a Tuscan landscape at sunset. Lovely.

“Cars and Guitars”: Wow. When this song came on, I thought, “Is this a TORI SONG???” I had no idea what it was. Not one of my favorite Tori songs (an understatement), this made me want to have a listen to The Beekeeper again. The nice thing about the classical arrangements is that they really showcase what a brilliant SONG-writer Tori actually is. The straightforward approach enables you to hear the structures of the songs themselves without all the over-produced layers of fluff, and in a case like “Cars and Guitars,” this makes all the difference. I had no idea what a pretty song this was (though Rob Paravonian would have a field day with it).

“Snow Cherries From France”: “Having said fare-thee-well to the dashing young Captain, her one true love, Merilee spends long nights walking the cliffs, scanning the dark and lonely sea, awaiting his return. She eventually succumbs to a broken heart and drops dead. The Captain comes home with his new French bride, Mimi — a former Paris, erm, “showgirl” — on the day of the funeral.” No, really, this is a good thing. Make Your Own Adventure.

“Professional Widow”: If Rasputina and Primus got married and had a kid…. The first violin thoroughly succeeds in getting across the teeth-gritting “I am quietly going mad and someone’s gonna get hurt” tone of this song. Dig the “Devil Goes Down To Georgia”-esque fiddle wig-out at the end of the “it’s runnin’ in the family” phrase. The song gets as close as an acoustic string instrumental possibly can to crunchcore, shifting to demure chamber music for the “peaches and cream” bridge. As the song comes out of that bridge, you’ll later swear you heard the same chunky bassdrum thrashes and bull roars that you hear in the original, even though there aren’t any. Shame they left out the entire final section of the song (“Mother Mary, china white”). I would have loved to hear how they handled that. All in all, simply an awesome piece of work. Crank it up.

“Taxi Ride”: My only real beef with the album is that this song cuts off quite abruptly at the end. As in, during the final note. It’s a bit annoying.

Perhaps the purest review of Pieces comes from my other half, a fellow with a brilliant ear for music who unfortunately has become less than impressed with Tori over the years and who cannot sit still for classical music of any kind: after being trapped in the same room with me one of the times I played the album, he finally said, “Are these classical versions of Tori songs? They’re really very good.”

(Available now at shops with discerning taste. Oh, and also Amazon. You can listen to clips there as well.)