Reviews

Carla Bozulich

Evangelista

Digg this review.
Add to del.ico.us.

Review Date: 2006-06-19

An album this bleak can only come from being recorded “in the dead of winter” as the press for Constellation’s Carla Bozulich forthrightly states.

As stripped down as any PJ Harvey release, and just as raw, the album is a remarkable journey of melancholy, that only rarely follows any traditional song structure at all.

Emotionally, this album is overwhelming.

“Evangelista I” is 9:33 seconds of a tonic poem that begins with a detuned string sample that literally sends shivers down my spine, and when the bells and knocking come in you know you’re not in for a normal album. Lush, and compelling, we are treated to a rather large overture before the lyrics kick in. There are no hooks here. The expression allows Bozulich to go a little nuts with her voice, and she ends up screaming “You me have tie me up, wrestle me, you may have to hold me under water just to keep me from screaming ‘No’.” At which the point, the music dies, and she instructs us in how to get on with our lives. This album may induce a need for more therapy yet.

“Steal Away” chills us out a little with a soft cello and organ leading into a guitar that plays, and then stops, and then plays again. Here, Bozulich presents us with a chilling love tune that never allows us to feel completely at ease. But it is the song that is going to get you to keep listening to the album after the first one makes you wonder about what’s to come.

“How to Survive Being Hit By Lightning” is a brilliant use of ambient noise, and is strikingly pretty to those of us that have developed a taste for such ventures. But this one is remarkably expressionist of an urban environment, including a beat that seems to come from standing in an alley outside a club, and the sounds of someone practicing drums, as well as radio static. Lyrically, Carla compares love to being hit by lightening, which would probably sound more cliche than it ends up doing with this kind of arrangement, which breaks into a choir of voices with Carla singing through a filter that can barely stop feeding back, before leaving us with a rather rhetorical question: “What did we do without love, baby so long?” Before, of chorus, an instrumental interlude

It’s kind of like listening to a derranged Bjork. Although Bjork may full well be derranged... so perhaps a less adjusted Bjork. But in a good way, though I suppose that’s largely subjective.

“Baby, That’s the Creeps” then chills us again, and an interesting thing to note at this point is that so far none of these tracks have the danger for being mistaken for the other. Bozulich could be accused of being self-indulgent, and it would be justified. But she cannot be accused of being uninventive. And again her voice over this sparse and yet lush ambient organ progression is very organic, and very emotional. And to her, “You sleep where you can hear 200 people breathing only piped in air, and that’s the creeps, your getting near, you look for a way out, any old way out, and baby, that’s the creeps.”

“Pissing” then brings us into rather interesting and familiar territory, though only if you are a Rheostatics fan, and only if you’ve managed to hear the songs inspired by the Group of Seven album. It’s an interesting synchronicity, because it’s almost illuminating on the Rheostatics concept, though has it’s own sound as well, delving almost into Sigur-Ros-like territory in a beautiful cacophony of noise and harmony, intensely intermingled.

The feel becomes lighter, though I have to admit that is a purely relative point here. “Prince Of The World” is almost light hearted, though still a little skewed in it’s tonality, and still ends up being edgy.

“Nel’s Box” then drives us back into the mysterious side of the album. None of these songs are traditional, it is true. But this one is a jarring addition after being softened up by the last two songs that are at least steeped in a lot of harmonic movement. This song is more in the zen area of stasis with an ever evolving atmosphere that is strangely enough to keep me interested.

After having survived my first Montreal winter, despite it being a rather timid one, I can see how this music gets made at this point in this city. Recording an album in this city at that time would certainly inspire the warmth and somewhat closeted in feel of this album. When we come back to “Evangelista II” to finish off the album, we are given some hope for spring. The original intensity of the first track has melted somewhat to give us a much more toned down plea for affection. The arrangement, more comfortable than jarring by now, is soft and organic, and yet totally digital.

This album maybe shouldn’t be as good as it end’s up feeling. Despite elements of the above mentioned bands, Evangelista the album strikes much different ground. It feels oddly tight, and yet Bozulich even includes her plosives(hard consonant sounds that make the mic sound like it’s popping) in the production. A warm, creepy, lush and compelling listen that should come with a Prozac prescription.

Score: 8.2

- Bobwell Gaines