RATING: *****
Flicker
Inside
This One's Mine
Treat Me Like Dirt
Looking For A Girl
Forgive Me
Up Against The Wall
Perfect Stranger
Out Of My Mind
Change Your Ways
Remembering Tonight
It's Alright
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PATTI ROTHBERG
Between the 1 and the 9 (1996)
Capitol Records
[41:52]
by Kelvin Lee
What a pretty face on the front cover, not unlike Sheryl Crow, perhaps,
whose first album was in a typically easy Californian style. The rear
cover features a montage of Patti's self-portraits, drawn in her own
hand during her teenage years -- a time when, like most of us, she too
searched for an identity. Plain ol' Patti, Patti a la Warhol, married
Patti, hippie Patti, and Patti the punk (the song titles are somewhere
in between the portraits)... The paintings suggest another TFS
(tortured female singer), more akin to Alanis Morisette than a feel-
good Sheryl Crow. All over the artwork is a generalised feeling of
clutter, tormented self-expression and frustration - perhaps just
another day in a big grubby city?
A first spin of the CD yielded me no personal favourites - nothing
particularly tuneful, just a clutter of very bluesy numbers which
sounded like a female banshee in the bowels of a cold urban city.
A general feeling of frustration, angst and urbanized clutter
pervaded the whole album.
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Her laments echo like the fleeting thoughts of our own experiences,
screaming in our head when our bodies can only move ... to an
urban crawl ...
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By the third listen some of the tunes started growing on me.
This is a great album for identifying the things we do in a big crowded
city - driving through traffic, getting trapped and paralyzed on the train,
being stuck in a bus queue, and perhaps huddling with the morning crowd
lining up for breakfast. Patti wails about broken love, loneliness,
betrayal and hollow experiences, albeit mostly at a frenzied pace.
Her laments echo like the fleeting thoughts of our own experiences
screaming in our head when our bodies can only move in unison to an
urban crawl, and any individualized action is impossible.
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... tracks 12 to 18 are completely
blank.
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On first starting the CD you might think it's a full 19 tracks in
43 minutes. In reality however, tracks 12 to 18 are completely
blank. Track 19 is the title track and is not listed in the sleeve
notes or the enclosed lyric sheet. But finding it is like striking
gold - it's my personal favourite. Otherwise, the album moves in
a generally urbanized blues direction, cranking into distortion
around track 7 ("Up Against The Wall") and then toning down again
on the more feeling numbers like track 12, "It's Alright."
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Her vocals are sweet, bordering on raspy,
and stylistically she sounds almost like Janis Joplin on "Forgive
Me."
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With the musical emphasis on strong rhythms throughout the album,
Patti shines in her handling of folk and twelve string guitars. Her
riffing on lead guitar is pretty average, and whilst reminiscent of
Joan Jett, falls short. Her vocals are sweet, bordering on raspy,
and stylistically she sounds almost like Janis Joplin on "Forgive
Me." Her voice, however, can be a little too sweet for rockish
Joan Jett-styled numbers like the humbucker-driven, chorus-pedalled,
powerchorded "Up Against The Wall." She sounds like Alanis Morisette
with an added twist of frustration on tracks like "Flicker," and on
"This One's Mine" there's an alternative touch, rather like
Blind Melon.
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.. simple, honest, and unpretentious ...
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The tracks on this album were mostly written during her college days,
and deal with issues like a girl's hopes, and boys. No Dylanesque
inspirations here. Her match of lyrics to tunes are good (if not
catchy) but can hardly be considered poetic in nature. In certain
instances, they border on plain corny, as in "Flicker" where she
writes: "Nightfall used to be your ocean and I your bridge across/
I survived your deadly potion and only you can feel the loss."
However, I must add that at least they are simple, honest and
unpretentious.
I'd recommend this album for the adventurous listener who appreciates
urban blues. Don't judge this album till you've spinned it at least
three to four times though.
KELVIN LEE is currently seeking to finance a television series called
SINGAPOREAN GOTHIC, in which he stars as a diabolic Super-GRC mayor
with absolute control over the housing conditions of his
constituents... oooooohhhh.
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