Twisted and dark, Tori Amos is back. Hard or impossible to describe her gloomy universe, “Night Of Hunters” pays tribute to such renowned composers as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert and taking inspiration from their original compositions to create a new, independent work. She revealed that the work on the album began after Deutsche Grammophon approached her to write a 21st Century song cycle under the condition that it be centered around classical music themes. Regarding the album’s concept, she has described it as the exploration of “the hunter and the hunted and how both exist within us” through the story of “a woman who finds herself in the dying embers of a relationship.”
Beautiful and troubled, Tori Amos returned to her darker roots and delivered a dense and thrilling opera.
This is not some easy listening collection of pop songs inspired by classics and arranged for symphonic or chamber orchestra, but a dark, twisted and tortured search with many downsides and sparking, but hilarious upsides, a journey through hell with no promises of return.
If her previous work “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” from 2009 – if we do not consider “ordinary” release her first seasonal album, the “Midwinter Graces” also from 2009 – took us to a more friendly area of music merging her classy “piano rock” with quite baroque pop and alternative rock construction reveling a more shinier and less darker Amos almost labelable as “radio friendly”, this time the gloomy, contorted spirit get once again to the surface and unleashed her darkest fears and secrets.
Still, Amos music breathing alive, has its own charm and she plays more than exciting.
Track list:
01. “Shattering Sea” (Variation on: Song of the Madwoman on the Sea-Shore, Prelude op. 31 no. 8 – Alkan) 5:38
02. “SnowBlind” (Variation on: Añoranza from 6 Pieces on Spanish Folksongs – Granados) 3:14
03. “Battle of Trees” (Variation on: Gnossienne no. 1 – Satie) 8:42
04. “Fearlessness” (Variation on: Orientale from 12 Spanish Dances – Granados) 6:31
05. “Cactus Practice” (Variation on: Nocturne op. 9 no. 1 – Chopin) 4:27
06. “Star Whisperer” (Variation on: Andantino from Piano Sonata in A major D 959 – Schubert) 9:53
07. “Job’s Coffin” (Inspired by: Nautical Twilight) 3:32
08. “Nautical Twilight” (Variation on: Venetian Boat Song from Songs Without Words op. 30 – Mendelssohn) 3:16
09. “Your Ghost” (Variation on: Theme and Variations in E flat major WoO 24 from Ghost Variations – Schumman) 5:38
10. “Edge of the Moon” (Variation on: Siciliano from Flute Sonata BWV 1031 – Bach) 4:51
11. “The Chase” (Variation on: The Old Castle from Pictures at an Exhibition – Mussorgsky) 3:02
12. “Night of Hunters” (Variation on: Sonata in F minor K. 466 – Scarlatti And: Salva Regina, Gregorian Chant) 5:32
13. “Seven Sisters” (Inspired by: Prelude in C minor – Bach) 2:44
14. “Carry” (Variation on: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair from Préludes I – Debussy) 4:07
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNy8hbQe3k0&w=545&h=307]
