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Rebecca Moore
HOME WRECKORDINGS 1997-1999
(KNITTING FACTORY)

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Singer/songwriter Moore’s follow-up to 1995’s intimate Admiral Charcoal’s Song is another highly personal work, and one she recorded — as its title implies — largely on her own. These 12 songs of loss and discovery mix downtown Manhattan art-rock instincts with the compositional signposts of minimalism and a taste for dissonance. The result is that numbers like "This/Past" and "Forest at Night" — really most of this material — take on an otherworldly quality abetted by their extreme quiet or rapid shifts in dynamics and character. With waves of ominous distorted guitar giving way to a near still life of clean-picked melodies and the chirp of electronic crickets, nothing in Moore’s world seems more permanent than her latest impulse. Which fits with all her lyric allusions to mental imbalance.

Toy instruments also contribute to the zip and twitter of her palette, cranking up the surrealism because they’re mostly used with serious intent. The sole cover is Earth Wind & Fire’s "Fantasy," which — set to an industrial throb-and-clatter — fits oddly well in the universe Moore’s plucked from her head. Pop fans will find her voice the easiest entry point: her alto has clarity and presence, and her phrasing at times recalls Björk or Sinéad O’Connor. But she’s far too original to copy anyone.

BY TED DROZDOWSKI

Issue Date: January 17 - 24, 2002
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