Anteater

Trollheart: Happy to have you following pal! You'll be familiar with a couple of albums that pop up here methinks!

Blarobbarg: So now I'm a smooth jazz guy instead of a proghead? How times have changed! Enjoy the thread.

Anyhoo....


I've seen this adriatic maestra mentioned around MB every so often over the last year or so, but even I'm surprised at how relatively little attention she gets here in the States, especially considering the insanely sad and moving circumstances that pushed her into the wonderful world of jazz, pop and bossa nova. She's about as perfect as they come in this genre, and 2012 doesn't have another record quite like this sophomore outing floating around either.

Under normal circumstances, its easy to criticize someone like Melody Gardot if you haven't actually spent any time in her aural universe: the songwriting, good as it is, isn't anything you haven't heard before from the numerous other jazz-educated progeny of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra and Eliane Elias.

Still, this stuff burns right through you like mercury on dreary, mundane nights, especially when minimalistic, stripped down elements come to the forefront on cuts like 'My Heart Won't Have It Any Other Way' and 'So Long' -- the production throughout The Absence is a warm, immaculate phenomenon in and of itself, attuned to the soft drum brushes and acoustic subtleties that flow around Melody's shimmering vocal evocations, almost as if she's attempting to summon you somewhere.

If someone asked me straight what I thought the most beautiful genre of music in the world was, Bossa Nova comes to my lips without a second thought....and such is made entirely justifiable by midnight oil masterpieces like this one: 2012 could have used far more of 'em.

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