Liz Janes & Create(!)
Issue #26
Liz Janes & Create(!) (Asthmatic Kitty)
By Anne Johnson
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 2:24pm
Virginia-born Liz Janes, who has worked with Sufjan Stevens and soul-junk, this time collaborates with Los Angeles-based free jazz collective Create(!). Produced and recorded by Create(!)’s own Chris Schlarb, Janes and Create(!) have re-recorded and reinterpreted an “unplugged” version of six public domain songs.
The decision to work together was a curious and not especially inspired choice. A stride is finally reached on “Run, Ol’ Jeremiah / Keep Your Hands on the Plow” and, for once, the collaborators don’t appear to be competing like they are on the majority of the tracks. Unfortunately, this song too becomes as overlong and repetitive as the others.
“Be My Husband,” the most compellingly rendered song here, pitches Liz Janes’s barely audible growl against the clanging and banging of Create(!) in the foreground. The atmosphere becomes as claustrophobic as the one-room cabin the album was recorded in which, perhaps, reveals the reasoning behind this musical mismatch.
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