Release Date: 10 September, 1996
Audio CD
Tracks
- Birth-day (Love Made Real)
- Headshots
- Caramel
- Stockings
- Casual Match
- Thin Man
- No Cheap Thrill
- World Before Columbus
- Lolita
- Honeymoon Suite
- Tombstone
- My Favorite Plum
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Rating 4.5
Timing Is EverythingTiming must be everything. Within the same week I picked up this excellent 1996 set at a garage sale, fell in love with the addictive "Caramel," and then heard the same song from the trailer of the new Mike Nichols film "Closer" starring Julia Roberts & Jude Law. With its samba beat and lyrical imagery, "Caramel" is a gorgeous track, "It won't do to dream of caramel, to think of cinnamon & long for you." Vega does a terrific job on many of the tracks here including "Headshots" with Steve Donnelly's haunting electric guitar, "He's just a poster, but he's everywhere. A face under a street lamp ripped & hanging in the air." "Casual Match" has a great insistent beat with Vega's haunting half-whispered vocals. "Lolita" also percolates with a bopping rhythm track. "Tombstone" is another catchy track, "I don't need to see the gates of famous men, but I do try to see the kingdom every now & then." "Nine Objects of Desire" boasts a number of sterling tracks. I'll wait to see if "Caramel" is included in the soundtrack for "Closer," but perhaps this set will again get some deserved exposure. Enjoy!Great from beginning to endIn Nine Objects of Desire Suzanne Vega is a songwriter on the very top of her game. Intelligent songwriting is a quantity in very short supply these days and Vega makes it look easy, with each song telling a different story. One would think that the music might suffer when so much attention has been paid to the lyrics, but this is not the case, musically each song is very well crafted. Many of the songs have a haunting or spooky quality to them, perhaps most exemplified by "Headshots," which probably got the most radio airplay, but they are all very evocative. "Nine Objects..." is what every album should be like, no clinkers among the bunch.Off Center Songs That Fly Softly Through The EarsSuzanne Vega has been releasing recordings of a compelling emotional vulnerability, for a dedicated and enthusiastic public, during much of the past twenty years. Recently, she has completed the work of hosting a public radio series, "American Mavericks" with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The series is comprised of some 13 one-hour long programs, featuring the histories and performances of amazing, iconoclastic, tradition-breaking classical composers of the 20th century.
A few years ago, around 1992, she teamed with producer Mitchell Froom on an album which poetically described the slightly elevated temperature of her quietly yearning human fire, 99.9F. That album's sound yielded for her music such hybrid classifications as "industrial folk" and "techno folk". The relationship between the two musicians flourished and Vega married Froom in 1993. By 1994, their first daughter Ruby was born.
Marriage agreed with the couple and smiled on their next collaboration together, 1996's "Nine Objects of Desire". Here we can see Suzanne Vega and Mitchell Froom producing an astonishing body of work, at the peak of both their artistic careers and their personal lives. This recording consists of songs which intertwine the sensitive vocal poetry and intricate guitar work of Suzanne Vega with Mitchell's Froom's intensely hip and sweetly sensual production methodology.
The music invites us on a journey which is thoroughly tender, yet carefully aggressive, warmly sexual yet sometimes dissonant. A journey which is both traditional and avant-garde all at the same time. Suzanne's voice is slightly off-center and because of that, it blends into a range of different soundscapes, revealing what a listener might not otherwise expect.
"Nine Objects of Desire" is a collection of twelve extended sonic moments of attentive communion. It is the ripe fruit of a music born through the spirit of a deep love, coupled with an easy trust. All fans of Suzanne's music should own this recording, it's one of her best. |
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