Trentalange

Photo Album of Complex Relationships (CocoTauro)

By Kat Long
Published: September 14th, 2006 | 2:29pm

The first solo album by Crooked Fingers alum Barbara Trentalange bridges the gap between Portishead’s Dummy in 1995 and a post-meltdown sound of the future. The Seattle-based singer and multi-instrumentalist, who wrote and recorded all of the disc’s songs, takes the moody, hypnotic quality of mid-90’s trip-hop and adds an art-rockish urgency that pays a bigger debt to Kraftwerk than to Roxy Music. The result is twelve magnetic songs in minor keys that are a far cry from your older sister’s goth records.

Layers of cello, piano, flute, organ, and a slithery theremin flesh out the down-tempo compositions and prevent the listener from slipping into the land of Nod. Trentalange’s voice is like warm caramel spiked with bourbon on these dark vignettes — a mix of Annie Lennox’s most sinister growl and PJ Harvey’s vocal anguish.

No one could ever accuse Trentalange of being blithe. The first track, “Boxer’s Wife,” grabs one by the throat with a tribal drumbeat and propulsive chorus of grief and desperation, while “Lonely Land” speaks of seduction by a handsome devil with its mellow piano chords and sultry tempo. In “Monster,” the album’s most daring song, the singer places herself in the role of an abusive lover. Over a deceptively sexy rhythm she threatens, “Cover up your bruises babe / No one believes they're from my hands.” The heaviness is then alleviated by “”Take Me Home,” a lilting love song that counteracts the album’s chill.

With Photo Album of Complex Relationships, Trentalange boldly voices a beautiful anxiety that seems unusually prescient. This is disturbing music for disturbing times.