A fun and amazing combination! Edward Gorey wrote macabre poems with matching drawings usually spelling out children’s twisted deaths. The Tiger Lillies are a British, cabaret musicians who play things including saw and accordion. They also have a male singer who sings in a very high falsetto. Kronos Quartet is the amazing local string quartet. Gorey supposedly really liked The Tiger Lillies and sent them some poems in hopes of collaboration, but in somewhat of a sick joke, he died before it happened. Well The Tigher Lillies with help from the Kronos Quartet have continued the project, creating a fun, sick, twisted, theatrical collection of cabaret/musical sounding tracks were people die in often gruesome manners. As I’ve listened to this CD for the 100th time I wonder why I keep thinking of the Muppets, maybe with Mrs. Piggy singing but all gruesome tales.

1. Slow almost march with some great saw playing. The intro to the disc.
**2. AMAZING! Going through the alphabet using each letter to describe a way to die! “A is for Arsenic, K is for Kris with a blade that is wavy”. Oompapa.
**3. Track starts with the Kronos Quartet playing a short dark intro which changes into an upbeat accordion romp that’s almost a tango. This one is so fun to sing along with. “The weeeeepiiiiiiinnnnngggg chand-e-lier”.
**4. Dark, slow and creepy. The ending is great, with the singer extending the words, “She will be canonized”
5. Piano, happy and playful.
6. Faster, accordion, saw, and catchy.
**7. How can you not like a song about a pig? Slow and mostly just saw, piano and vocals.
8. Upbeat wondering about the whereabouts of Hertha Strubb and if she was murdered and how. At one point were she chokes, the singer umm, well, chokes a LOT.
9. An odd story of a couple who gets married, realize immediately they made a mistake and decide to kill themselves.
**10. Very upbeat music with what sounds like a toy piano maybe xylophone. A fun song about suicide.
11. This one is really creepy. A story of a girl `whose mom starved her, made her dance in a tutu and she eventually kills herself. The singer shows off some opera style singing.
12. More classical sounding with some catchy vocals.
13. Mostly piano and less falsetto on the vocals.

GREAT stuff! -mph