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WANT ONE
(DreamWorks)
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Want One finds pianist/songwriter Rufus Wainwright in an emotionally precarious position, having been recorded, as he stated earlier this year in a New York Times interview, after "falling into ‘gay hell’ with Crystal Meth addiction." The disc is, then, both a celebration of rediscovery and a documentation of the confusion and the raw nerves that accompany early sobriety, and it’s a coherent and confident artistic statement. Drawn on a grand scale, the musical backdrops match the intensity of the emotions in Wainwright’s confessional songwriting. Beginning with "Oh What a World," a joyful awakening complete with brass flourishes and a massed vocal harmonies, he uses self-depreciating humor (discovering "mysterious bruises’" and "a bucket of rhymes I threw up somewhere’" in "I Don’t Know What It Is") mixed with blatant cries for help ("Oh God, What Have I Done to Myself?" in "Vicious World") to document his journey. The theme of awakening gets revisited in "Beautiful Child," where new emotional capacities are linked to childlike wonderment; "Vibrate" juxtaposes a meditation on modern love with a coy vocal delivery and skeletal arrangement. The singing is gorgeous throughout, confirming Wainwright’s billing as a cabaret-style pop talent. (Rufus Wainwright appears November 14 at Pearl Street, in Northampton; call 413-586-8686. He appears November 16 at Avalon; call 617-423-NEXT.)
BY CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY
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