‘The Living Record’ is Canadian singer songwriter CHRISTA COUTURE'S latest album, and follows on from 2008’s ‘The Wedding Singer & The Undertaker’.
This was a difficult album to review, as Christa is fairly direct in her lyrics, which deal with loss and death. That’s not to say that the album is depressing, far from it, as Christa’s talent shines above the darkness of the subject matter.
The album moves through various genres, but is best described as part alt. folk, part country, although there are several other styles thrown into the melting pot. The album opens with ‘You Were Here In Michigan’, the first single from the album, and which Christa has offered for free as a download from Christa Couture online.
A guitar based country style song that starts off slowly, then picks up about halfway through, this is an excellent start to getting into Christa’s world. Whilst the music may be country in genre, the lyrics flow in the style of a 1960's folk song:- “Well you remember the 70s much better than I; you were alive then, for one thing/ It was the end of that decade, when I arrived and you were here in Michigan.”
This opens up some really good narrative storytelling, and anyone who can drop the line “though I’ll be in the house on the hill, trying to distil cadence and colloquy” into the middle of a song has clearly eaten a dictionary for breakfast.
|
The track ‘Pirate Jenny and the Storm’ is something different, part jazzy, part Berlin cabaret. Some of the lines are lifted directly from Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. This is a standout track with some engaging lyrical twists: -“Me and Pirate Jenny on the stage, a different town, a different play/ We do our monologues and then our song in sixteen bars/ we are laughing in the wings.”
‘Pussycat Pussycat is a throwback to the guitar pop of the 1970s, and also works really well, and relates the story of a trip to England that didn’t always work out as expected:- “I went to take the tube and got stuck, I went to take the train and got mugged/ I went from pub to pub to pub to pub. Oh yeah, then I fell in love.”
Whilst Christa may dwell upon relationship break ups and tragedies, there is a degree of humour in her lyrics that do tend to lighten the mood at the right moments, such as on, say, ‘Hopeless Situation.’
Overall, I enjoyed this album, and it arrived at just the right time. Christa starts a short UK tour this week, and would certainly be worth seeing on the strength of this release.
|
