CAROL LIPNIK AND SPOOKARAMA: Hope Street

Carol Lipnik and Spookarama

Hope Street

© 2002 Carol Lipnik (820360102226)

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If DJ Spooky mix-melded Laura Nyro with Tom Waits it might sound like Carol Lipnik and Spookarama.

tracks

1 Hope Street
2 Voodoo Doll
3 By This River
4 Wild Pony/ Ago Chango
5 Plain Gold Ring
6 Rags And Old Iron
7 I Don't Know How To Stop
8 The Twist
9 Sister Rosemarie
10 Language Of The Heart
11 Reality
12 In Faith

notes

"Carol Lipnik and Spookarama evoke a Coney Island of the ear, full of ghostly, carnivalesque moments" New York Times

Coney Island native songwriter Carol Lipnik and her band Spookarama craft an eerie, hypnotic sound that raids the musical toy boxes of everyone from Dr. John and Janis Joplin to Kurt Weill and Tim Buckley. Hope Street is a neo-psychedelic folk-rock album with traces of European cabaret and Lipnik's sui generis brand of New Orleans witch-doctor swamp-blues voodoo. The album's transformations (please don't think of them as anything so mundane as "cover versions") of other people's material range from Brian Eno ("By This River") to Nina Simone (Plain Gold Ring). Yet Lipnik's own songwriting provides some of Hope Street's most striking moments, whether on the wild-woman blues of "Wild Pony" or the ethereal, atmospheric "Language Of The Heart".
Perhaps most distinctive of all, even beyond the gumbo-garage rhythms of bassist David Kannenstine and drummer Geoff Mann, or the avant-psychedelia of guitarist Marlon Cherry, is Lipnik's miraculous, octave spanning voice, capable of leaping effortlessly from guttural growl to dog-whistle wail.
Produced by former Blue Man Group band member Bradford Reed, who contributes a number of exotic instrumental touches himself, Hope Street stands to prove that the day of the strikingly distinctive, left-field singer-songwriter did not end when Captain Beefheart exiled himself to the Mojave desert.

reviews

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  • Hope Street is Spooky New York.
    author: Scotsjohn

    Greetings from Aberdeen, Scotland. I was surfing one night a few weeks ago when quite by accident I stumbled across Carol Lipnik and Spookarama & "Hope Street". I listened to the tracks and thought it sounded interesting so I ordered it. Now after hearing it in full it has become my favourite CD purchase of 2004 so far. Carol has a voice & sound not dissimilar to The Slits & Lydia Lunch. The tracks have a dark but endearing quality with originals like "Hope Street" & "Sister Rosmarie" having a lovely gloomy feel whilst covers such as "By This River" & "The Twist" take on a fresh new feel. I can only hope that Carol will follow up this wonderful CD real soon.

  • An American Original
    author: Mark A.

    There are albums out there that create an atmoshpere so thick, you actually get lost in it. "Hope Street" is one of these. One minute, you're walking down a shadowy street in a New Orleans, the next you're in a one-room apartment, listening to someone try to make sense out of the choas. Carol Lipnik and Spookarama are a true American classic. Their tales of carnivals, nocturnal drives through the city, fortune-tellers and lonely souls are enchanced by Lipnik's mesmerizing voice and the spare, moody arrangements of the tunes. If you love music that spins urban folktales, that captures both the rusty grandeur AND the pensive gloom of life on the boundaries, "Hope Street" will grab you.

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