Lisnaholic

Stepmother City Tracklist:-
1 Introduction 1:45
2 Dance Of Eagle 4:36
3 Like Transparent Shadow 5:10
4 Order To Survive 5:41
5 Let The Sunshine 3:41
6 Ritual Virtuality 4:27
7 Tuva Blues 5:06
8 Old Melodie 4:13
9 Lonely Soul 7:44
10 Boomerang 8:45

It's been really interesting to read your comments about this album, particularly as I have no-one else to enthuse about it with - and happily most of you have enjoyed it.

I agree with Trollheart up to a point. The album starts off by hinting at wild Tibetan spaces and each of the first four tracks are a little weirder, track-by-track, culminating in Order To Survive with its horns and funky beat, which I think is the "trip hop" one ?

Let The Sunshine was a drop in intensity: something of a filler track to me, which is also, and not by coincidence, the one that rubbersoul identifies as the natural choice for the single-from-the-album. I'm sure we've all seen this before: the choice for single being the track that's easiest on the ear, rather than the best.
With the next track, we are on stronger ground as Ritual Virtuality swings easily from spooky floating flute parts to almost rocking rhythmic sections, with SN's voice master(mistress) of all. Tuva Blues is certainly strange, with spoken word, mouthharp (?) and the singing that TH didn't care for. To me, there is also a hint of a Latin beat in there too: furthur proof that SN can take any style and bend it to her vision - a point that you suggested, SGR, when you talked about the range of sounds across the album. But for the moment, we are back to safer, more established SN territory with Old Melodie.

Lonely Soul raised a few eyebrows I think, but to me this is the lynchpin track of the whole album. This is SN's manifesto:

As if to prove the point, she then embarks on the weirdest vocalisations on the whole album. If her voice up to now has been that of an idiosyncratic loner wandering through the world's genres at leisure, with this track she is sailing off to some new level of weird that not many people can join her on: a Lonely Soul to the last.

And to conclude, we have Boomerang, which sounds to me like a good reprisal of the whole album, and with some spoken word stuff full worthy sentiments, we are brought gently to peace with the universal sounds of birdsong and running water for the fade out.

So, for me, a wonderful album, both in its individual songs and the way they have been put in a meaningful order. And yes, rs, I also thought of Yoko Ono, more specifically wondering why I like SN, but Yoko not so much.

Is it bad manners in an album club to give 10/10 to your own nomination? In my defense, at least I've given that score before - to the Utah Phillips album.

And lastly, a tip for furthur exploration of SN:
Naked Spirit is a good album, Like A Bird Or Spirit is good in parts, but Lost Rivers is a mainly acapella hard-core nightmare. My advice to Trollheart: don't even set one foot into a lift if Lost Rivers is playing; your faith in music as a source of pleasure will be destroyed in the time it takes you to go from one floor to the next!

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953