wonderful
author: funkyj
Awesome album. xoxox
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nice!
author: krossie
Just downloaded completely savage lyrically and musically - lovely stuff
kpx
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In a day and age when more and more people seem content with what ever crap the
author: Kyle Markley
My primary complaint about most of the music that comes out is it doesn't have a unique sound.Nothing about it stands out or grab you.That's not to say its awful. Some of it's perfectly mediocre. But who wants perfectly mediocre? Ok, 35 million American Idol veiwers might. But for me, life's to short to listen to boring, mediocre crap.
That's why I'am a huge fan of Izzy Cox. On her album Love Letters from the Electric Chair, she displays the rarest of all musical gifts: a unique, original voice. Influenced by all the greats Billie Holiday to Nina Simone, from Ella Fitzgerald to Patsy Cline, she puts her own original spin on it all. She calls it Voodoobilly Jazz, a mix of bar room blues and jazz standards with a country vibe -dark, twisted tales oflove and hate, death, loneliness, betryal. Oh, and the occasional serial killer. You know - happy shit.
My personal favorite tracks are "Crystal Ball 78" and "It Must Be Love." These have the most country influence on them, which is odd for me, because I'am generally allergic to anything country that isn't by a guy named Willie or a guy named Johnny. But somehow she make it work.
In a day and age wen more and more people seem content with whatever crap the record companies throw at them, it's refreshing to see a real artist out there. Izzy is singing these songs because she has to. It's like breathing or eating. And that's why her songs will stay with you long after the album is over.
Do yourself a favor- check out Love Letters from the Electric Chair.
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STARTLING ORIGINALITY
author: Captain Umentionable
I was given this CD by a friend who knows I like unusual music. I was skeptical; it's been a hard year and I didn't want to slog through another badly produced amateur record. I put the CD aside and didn't listen to it for a few days. The downside of the digital age is: everybody can cut a damned record. The upside is: sometimes that record was cut by a genuine talent who crafts an aggressively individual experience. When I put this CD in my Mac, I had to stop what I was doing and immerse in the jangly, outlandish songs. ¶ Cox's sound on this CD is frank and a little raw. The mix of guitars &c is way fun to hear: the playing is tight and slightly drunken. It sounds like a C&W band going down the rabbit hole (‘Drink Me!’). Cox's lyrics are—well, they're a bit disturbing, featuring as they do a preoccupation with female anger, tenderness & the concomitant lust for freedom. They're intelligent and frequently funny. ¶ But what got me was her singing: this woman has no fear, vocally. She opens a song straightforwardly, favoring the lyric, then builds to a reckless confessional heat. She stretches her husky voice to its limit in one phrase, reins it softly in the next. Cox could succeed solely as a nightclub singer, doing covers—in Paris, say, before the Germans invaded . . . but she's completely modern in her willingness to crack a verse open with notes that reek of whiskey and smoke and sour drugs. ¶ I was fascinated by her voice. My wife came in my office as the CD played; we sat together and listened. 'Who is that?' she asked. 'Izzy Cox,' I said. 'Wow,' she said, & turned the CD cover over in her hands, as if trying to divine from the graphic if it was the lost recording of a Weimar chanteuse on her last legs, or something more modern, sexier, more raw. I’ve listened to ‘Love Letters from the Electric Chair’ a number of times in the weeks since, I have to say: I think it’s a lot of both. ¶ Wow, indeed.
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