There are people out there who could say Kevin Orton is one seriously disturbed and cynical songwriter. However, that would depend upon your definition of cynical. Randy Newman defines cynical as underestimating your audience's intelligence. If you use that definition, Orton is definitely not cynical. He challenges the listener with great literate dark lyrics and memorable interesting chord structures and melodies that cross numerous genres ranging from country to rock to cabaret. At times, he sounds like Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and the late great Jeffrey Lee Pearce. In fact, Shanghai, with its fits and starts sounds, like it would fit perfectly on an old Gun Club or JLP Pearce CD. His band is quite excellent and very tasteful. And the wonderful assortment of instruments gives the CD a beautiful diverse texture that holds the listener's attention listen after listen. I just can't get it out of my CD player. Keep a dictionary nearby. You may need it to fully comprehend these lovely Faulkneresque stories set to music.

KEVIN ORTON has just released a brand New CD which is a Far Cry from his earlier effort which was great dark countryish folk with a brilliant rendition of a Poem by Our favorite poet, PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR. This new one is minimal only in concept. Produced, Mastered, and happily Gothic and Hopefully Dark, this is Otherwise difficult to Describe. But RadioMike enjoys these Sorts of Challenges. You could call all of this Gothic Americana Noir Storytelling. It should just be a matter of time before Our Storyteller begins writing longer Novels.

i bought this cd a few months ago. beautiful. "dark troubled angel" and "who set the moon" were some fan favorites. what can i say: i'm into the depressing stuff.

Spending a stretch with Kevin Orton on Femme Noir’s like a guided tour of Storyville with the guy who knows where all the best gin’s at and where all the worst killings happened. One might be tempted to label many of the cuts as ballads, but they’re peopled with characters who would beat the living hell out of the people in most tunes: women snatching aliases off gravestones, dragon ladies you’re powerless but to worship, monkeys, and the pistols that witness everything. Like the Shakespearean he is, Orton plays up the antitheses on Femme Noir to great effect: Sweet Evangeline opens with a Schraderesque stroll through the red light district but quickly betrays itself as an achingly lovely valentine; the churlish rake on Gates of Hell damns himself to a hootenanny beat; and the stillwater calm of Who Set The Moon burns you black at its close, courtesy of Cole Wheeler’s inspired guitar. The other tunes are equally able: Gordon Gano’s guest violin renders Sad Eyes a study in bewitchment, Pure Shanghai proves Orton can score to electric guitar with the best of em, and Dark Troubled Angel, with nothing but Orton and the ivories, is as simple and moving as any ode you’re likely to hear. Like a rouge’s gallery of scribblers from Poe to Bukowski, Orton knows there’s great beauty, even humor and honor, to be found in the climes and vices most of us care only to hear about. He’s clearly also a firm believer in Baudelaire’s dictum to “be always drunk,” which he gets in spades on Femme Noir: not on hi-fi parlor tricks or the cleverness of his own lyric, but on American root music, slanguage, and yeah, even good old love. Some ink’s been spilled comparing Orton’s voice to Cash and Cave (which is only natural), and his tone definitely has the easy force of the former and the laid-bare bite of the latter, but don’t be fooled: the well-crafted songs and the voice that deals them are all Orton’s own, flavored with pitch-perfect, evocative instrumentation (organ, saw, scratchy phonograph). Suzanne Kaiser’s plaintive dulcimer sticks to you especially. As Orton and his crew lope off in oompa step after Burying the Tiger, you can only hope they do their next bit of time in some ramshackle studio somewhere laying down their next bit of romance, mayhem and bitters.