An Invitation

The L.A. Weekley mentioned in passing that the great Van Dyke Parks had made a new album with someone I've never heard of. First thing I did whne i got home was check on Amazon for this album. When I saw the album, I was worried. It looked like it could be potential hipster garbage. So, I took the risk, coughed up thirteen bucks, and bought the CD.

I remember when I opened the brown Amazon box, I was very impressed by this little CD's colorful and cute packaging. As soon as I noticed the little rabits and birds in the pile of food, I couldn't help it, but smile in glee. I went straight toward my stereo, plopped in the CD, and hit play.

What I heard threw me off. It sounded like Van Dyke Parks, with all the odd key changes and lush orchestration for smaller broadway style groups. Then on the second track came the vocals. I usually avoid most contemporary music so I was caught off guard when this quiet, mousey, jazzy voice came through the speakrs, singing something closer to poetry than just lyrics on a page.

I listened to about half the album, and then had to go somewhere. Everyday since, I've avoided that and tried listening to it the whole way through everyday. Every song has a simple joy to it, something severally lacking in art today. This CD is most definatly up there with the best contemporary popular music albums I've heard in the last few years.

Not only i bought the cd, i also attended a concert, In Holland, of Inara George and van Dyke Parks! and live it's gives the same feeling, dreamy, sweet lyrics and a wonderful , typical Van Dyke Parks orchestration. a cd, you have to listen more times, and it grows more and more!

Imagine -- what if Regina Spektor were to conquer an orchestra, and recorded an album while keeping them in her thrall?

That about describes the sound of Inara George's second full-length solo album (no bird and the bee, no Living Sisters, nobody!), a quirkily orchestral collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. George's vivid songwriting and huskily pretty voice would be enough to make this a solid effort on their own, but the lovely backdrop of twitching swirling strings and faint accordion take the songs to a whole new level.

It opens with a trumpeting overture and nimble strings, and you can almost imagine a line of heralds welcoming George into a fully furnished little album. And then: "Wanna find the bottom of my heart/wanna be alone until I'm lonely," George sings plaintively, sounding weary and careworn. As the violins spin themselves around her, she tells us what she wants to do: "I want to have regrets/because I want to do absolutely all i can... open the door and find/a destination, a revelation/I'll see a ghost/he'll steal my voice and I'll begin again..."

The next two songs are both sprightlier and darker -- "Accidental" is a barbed little song with a lively melody ("when you speak to me/I speak too pleasantly/where's the knife? where's the fire?") and "Bomb" is a darker version of the same, with a more bittersweet tone. George slips through a wall of swaying strings and gentle accordion, sounding like she's singing a number in a musical set in Parisian springtime.

And after that, George dabbles in other pop songs filled with orchestral grandeur: a languid sunlit ballad ("I can break my heart before we start..."), angular melodies that meander through a maze of strings, wistful feather-light songs about someone who went to Idaho, dark ballads half-overwhelmed by urgent cascading violins, mellow pop tunes, and even mellower little love songs pillowed in nimble string sections ("Do you know your family tree?...
I could be your century/I wanna settle down/I could be your baby tree...").

Inara George's previous album "All Rise" had a folk-rockier sound -- when she wasn't murmuring through soft guitar ballads, she tried her hand at rock'n'roll and a little electronic-tinged pop. She's obviously gone through a lot of musical evolution since then, because "An Invitation" has little in common with her past work -- the songs on here sound less folk-rocky, and more like an orchestral Regina Spektor, or perhaps a more melodiously-voiced, less crack-fairy Joanna Newsom.

First of all, there are strings. Lots of strings. Whole streams of violins sweep, whirl, slice, merrily saunter, soar and cascade through the melodies, and when required to they can also chirp and twitter their way through the quirkier portions like a flock of string-powered birds. You can also hear some piano woven in there, along with some even mellower horns -- and of course the accordion pops up every now and then to give the songs a vaguely French flavour. If there's a problem with the instrumentation, it's that often the melodies sound very similar from one song to the next.

But lovely as the instrumentation is, George's voice is what really sells this -- husky, sweet and flexible, and able to stand above all the strings and accordions without having to try too hard. She can half-speak through a quirky love song ("... hoping for a little rest/while fighting off your sleeplessness/haunted by the ghost of you/reminds you what you didn't do") as easily as she can sing vivid ones ("skin and bones and blood and stones/and gold and lace and men and mice... a state of mind to intertwine/now love is blind/a rough design but still sturdy").

Inara George's second solo album lives up to its inviting title, and manages to mix quirky indiepop and classical instrumentation with few hiccups. Lovely.

Infectious tunes and outrageously surprising arrangements. Both my 13-year-old daughter and I (43-year-old mother) love this CD.

I have to admit that I came into this album with high expectations. The idea of the great Van Dyke Parks with a female songwriter/vocalist immediately reminded me of Joanna Newsom's incredible Ys. In some ways this albums is a sort of Ys II, but it falls short in other respects.

These songs that the catchy melodies, emotional swells and long narrative arcs that make Ys so engaging.

Instead, this collection just seems "pretty" - lacking the substance of Newsom's epics.

Overall, it just doesn't have the energy or vision that I was hoping for.