This is truly awesome. Truly eclectic, too.
The opening track 'Down From Dover' (Dolly Parton) made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Just from those opening few moments, I knew this was going to be something special.
It continued to astonish. The range of songs is just magical. Somehow, they all become Marianne Faithful songs. I know that, sometime in the future, I'm going to hear Brian Eno's '
How Many Worlds' and be surprised that he's done a cover of a Marianne Faithful song.
There are loads of 'special guests' on the album. This made me a bit wary, to be honest. You know, get an album out, make sure it sells by packing the backing band with well-known friends. No - that's not the case here. Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright and Keith Richards really add something with their contributions, they don't detract or distract from the central figure of Marianne Faithful. The whole record works around her.
These are unique interpretations. Some tracks do remind me a lot of Kurt Weill - besides the obvious 'In Germany Before The War' by Randy Newman. Instruments like E flat clarinet, sarrusaphone (yeah, I had to look that one up on Google too) add to this. But that dark, urban feel is carried over into tracks like 'Down From Dover' (Weimar meets Nashville? :-)).
'Salvation' is another hair-raiser. It almost sounds like an Eno production, with that strange strangled droning guitar.
Sometimes, the arrangements seem deliberately perverse. Not entirely sure about Antony Hegarty with Marianne on a Smokey Robinson track (Hegarty gets funky?). In that one, Marianne seems to step back and let Antony do his thing. Marianne with Jarvis Cocker on 'Somewhere (A Place for Us)' is quite surreal, seriously black humour.
The final track 'Flandyke Shore' with simple, subtle backing from the McGarrigle Sisters (we just need Rufus' dad here for a family reunion) is beautiful. Marianne Faithful 'does' old, dark English folk songs so well - and somehow the feel of Flandyke Shore echoes back to the very first track 'Down From Dover'. Wraps the whole thing up beautifully.
I want to talk about every track here - every one of them has something special. But I won't - just listen to it.