657 Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983)

 657 Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983)

Studio album - Experimental Rock



About the Act:

Tom Waits is an American Blues/Jazz/Experimental singer/songwriter/musician. 

He started out as Jazz and morphed into more blues/folk with some decided "experimental" elements. He has created a kind of hobo/beat poet persona. He has been incredibly successful worldwide. He has also worked as an actor. Since his first album in 1973, he has had 16 more.

About the Album:

This was Tom's eighth studio album, and the start of his experimental stuff.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

This is proper bonkers. It contains 15 songs in just over 41 minutes, which is less than three minutes a song, and I guess one way of thinking about them is as vignettes, or sketches. There are elements of Jazz, Folk, Blues and experimental stuff here. The instrumentation is often quite eclectic, especially in the percussion department. It has a lo-fi production feel, not dirty or scratchy, but like really good recording equipment has been dragged into a series on small rooms, and people are playing cheap instruments, while other people make banging noises on whatever happens to be around. There are occasional trombones, twice glass harmonicas, and once, highland bagpipes. 

There's one track (Dave the Butcher) which is best described as drunken discordant noodlings on a rock organ. Some are more conventionally harmonic and melodic, but some are not. The consistent use of upright basses in particular gives a jazz sound, and it's all quite intimate, mostly mellow, sometimes harsh.

The lyrical content is pretty typical Tom Waits, a kind of Jack Karouak vision of gritty and earthy America, viewed with a mixture of self-deprecation and nostalgia, and darkness. It seems to be permanent night-time in a smoky bar, or a rainy train, or such things. The vocals are various forms of growling, mostly clear enough to understand, and some sung, some narrated like film noir. This is probably Jazz Noir. 

It's eclectic, warm but dark, musically cool and mostly engaging, with some more challenging bits. I've had a few Tom Waits albums now, and with any act with more than one album in my list, because I'm doing a countdown, they should get better. It may be that, or that I'm getting my ear in for Tom Waits, but I enjoyed this quite a lot. It's odd enough to make me sit up and pay attention, although at times it feels like pretention. It's not really a background album, it demands too much attention for that. It might be a good album to listen to when you want time to pass, and want distracting, for example while waiting in hospital for an operation.

7.7/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/51hrKjSvIX69tl1g13R0hI

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTMN6OMDTnKkOKzm1sjO2Hpc2y7Lm2JBv

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordfishtrombones



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