Residue

Avant/Experimental art a la Laurie Anderson. Influences amazingly include opera, and classic Broadway musicals – but with a great twist. Inventive, original, surprising, theatrical, humorous, refreshing. Mostly synthesized, sampled, and looped sounds and beats (if any), quite minimal. The vocals are almost strictly Amy’s, backing, choirs and all; liner notes report that she can make this happen live on stage, too, sampling and looping her own voice and other stuff to create an amazing collage. Tracks are twisted medleys of different genres, don’t be caught off guard! Fabulous stuff.
Pronounce: NU-BOORG.
Track 6 blows me away. 10, 1, 4, 7, 9, 12 are other favorites.

1.* Dramatic vox, low hummed drone, turns into fast tempo, multiple chanting vox, Amy’s voice soaring above. Cools down back to the hum, Latin spoken chant, medieval. And repeat.*
2. Rocky; shakers, bass drum beat, loud outbursts, rock-star vox (she can do that, too!). Shifts, gets operaic toward end.
3. Gentle, weird, midtempo Broadway musical cabaret gone sparse and sweet.
4. * Slow, multiplied echoed metallically distorted vox, talking/singing/whispering, with a tiny touch of string-like drone.*
5. African-like vocal backing, buzzy rhythm, soulful box. Rhythm halts for beautiful vocal collage with hymn and talking voices. Returns with Streisand-like portion, but changes again, all in 4 mins, wow.
6. ***Church-like choir, but than a story told over the singing. [Names. Islam. God.] Explodes in short noisy burst (watch levels); resumes. [Room. Forget. Food. God.] And again. [Stoned. Safeway. Cheesecake.] And more. [Cat. Microsoft. Milk.] Fucking amazing, quadruple wow. Powerful, breathtaking, wow again, and again. ***
7. * Mid tempo, circus-like opening, playful, classic sound, Fiery Furnaces go to Broadway.*
8. Brushed sampled midtempo beat, the vox imitate, incredible.
9. * Starts with spoken “instructions”. Then slow tempo, dark keys, Lauren Hill-y, somewhat. Secret messages exchanged in hushed, rushed tone. Ssssshhhhh. Telephone exchange, “too many substances”, great.*
10. ** Beautiful, relatively straightforward, dramatic slow low-key ballad. Breathtaking.**
11. Midtempo, clunky beat. With a wink to modern R&B but electronic, twisted.
12.* Acapela, island-like chant, choir that grows and grows, with Amy’s vox over the choir. Climatic. Great closer.*