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ELMA MAYER Elma Mayer (1996, CD, Ponk Records P-F010) 
(File under Art-Pop, if you must have a label. Of course, Some Phil recommends that you file all your records alphabetically, without regard to genre.) Written and performed by Elma Mayer, with guest performances by bassist Chris Wood of Medeski Martin Wood, drummer Jon Feinberg of Church of Betty, and guitarist Marc Muller. Produced by Elma and Brian Woodbury (who also song-doctored). The CD opens with The Green Shade, a neo-Schubertian song about yearning for, and ambivalence towards, home. For Elma, it seems that the shade is always greener elsewhere. The first of two song cycles on the CD is Three Haiku vs. the Pet Gila Monster. It channels the soundtrack of a monster movie, imagined by an inmate of a California desert internment camp. There are echoes of the early 20th century, of 12-tone music and 12-bar blues. The songs are a history vaguely remembered from scratchy records, half-forgotten bible stories, and disintegrating black and white films. The lyrics invoke the myth that art can be immortalized through technology. Three Haiku... was commissioned by the First Light program of Dance Theater Workshop, with funds provided by the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation. Bends, the CD's second song cycle, draws from another lush 20th century palette - impressionism, musique concrete, and gamelan. It acts as a yin to the yang expressionism of the first song cycle. Bends was commissioned by New Langton Arts (San Francisco). The so-called bonus track, How Good is the Wine of Ghiurghiu, is an editorialized version of a Romanian song, inspired by Luciano Berio's Folk Songs. |
"The
uncategorizable songs of this Bucharest-born singer are as engaging as pop,
as complex as German lieder, and touch on jazz, 12-tone music, experimentalism,
cabaret, and a few other things." - Kyle Gann, the Village Voice "This Bucharest-born Brooklynite has a great new album of songs and cycles that draw on a century or two's art-music and pop traditions. I'm constantly drawn back to Three Haiku vs. the Pet Gila Monster...." - Richard Gehr, the Village Voice "The music is powerful, even disturbing..." Keyboard Magazine |