June 17th, 2009 7:24am
Dismissed With A Glance
Rachel Taylor Brown “Susan Storm’s Ugly Sister”
Susan Storm is the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four, and her superpower is that she can become, well, an invisible woman. Susan Storm’s Ugly Sister, an invention of songwriter Rachel Taylor Brown, did not need to be bombarded with cosmic radiation to acquire a similar talent — she’s simply found that her homeliness allows her to escape the notice of most everyone. The character is bitter and disturbed, and indulges in revenge fantasies in which she uses her “invisibility” to her advantage in murdering oblivious men. Brown’s arrangement and vocal performance is brilliant, emphasizing her character’s extreme discomfort and ethical conflict, as well as projecting a sort of sullen placidity that is periodically interrupted by tiny outbursts of simultaneous rage, angst and guilt.
Buy it from CD Baby.
6/17/09 12:36 pm
Sounds a little like Kristen Hersh. Right?
6/17/09 2:24 pm
Nice album; I like it bunches and bunches. Kinda like a weirder, dissonant Tori Amos.
6/17/09 5:58 pm
Definitely hear the Hersh in this, good call.
6/18/09 1:10 am
A review comparing this album to two others appeared on Oregon Public brodcasting’s music website a couple of weeks back.
The direct link is: http://opbmusic.org/blog/entries/524-Zaph-Mann-on-Music-Review-Rachel-Taylor-Brown-Laura-Barrett-and-Vanessa-Peters.
She’s also been compared to Regina Spektor - the NYC artists who has a little inflection in her voice which reminds me of a watered down Dresden Dolls vocal. Like
Dresden Dolls, Rachel Taylor Brown plays the piano more percussively than Spektor (at least on my limited hearings of her), and Brown’s voice is so good that the inflections aren’t needed to carry the song.