? FATEA - Reviews

Reviews

Anna LaubeAnna Laube
Album: Anna Laube
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.annalaube.com

Iowa-born Anna, raised in Madison (Wisconsin) then latterly living in San Francisco, is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who heralds something of an artistic rebirth by self-titling this disc, which happens to be her third album. Not having heard either of her previous records, I'm not qualified to comment, but in many ways the current record has much of the tentative feel of a debut release, and (perhaps curiously) this impression is accentuated by the known fact that it took Anna five years to complete, over a period during which she meditated and volunteered at more than ten silent retreats and intersected with a vast spectrum of humanity.

Fittingly, then, it's rather a ragbag of styles, grooves and ideas, a self-admitted tying-up of loose ends which just refuses to hang together; the only conceivable connecting thread being Anna's sweet, winsome, friendly-toned singing voice. This can be attractive, sure, as on the lovely opening song Already There (part of the melody of which bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr Tambourine Man), the chirpy Sweet Boy from Minnesota and the affectionate This One's For You. But oh if the rest of the album had the same degree of charm in its light-textured recesses… Titles like Chocolate Chip Banana Cupcakes and The Bike Song don't exactly inspire, and they prove just slightly embarrassing, self-consciously kooky novelties (despite any more serious pretensions to commentary that Anna might reasonably harbour).

Anna's attempts at getting gritty, sassy and bluesy (e.g. You Ain't Worth My Time Anymore) don't quite seem to come off either. However, there are redeeming features too: in addition to her own compositions, Anna delivers a well-intentioned, soulful cover of Porter Wagoner's Satisfied Mind that takes it into the personal first-person domain and sounds more plausible. As in a way does her update-cum-paraphrase of Cocaine Blues (which explores addiction to Sugarcane).

Anna surrounds herself with some decent musicians, including at one point Chuck Leavell on keyboards, and the now-almost-standard practice of recording in far-apart locations (LA and NY) doesn't seem to have compromised the end product. The disc comes in a nice hand-crafted foldout digipack with appealing booklet and artwork; and Anna's press pic efficiently conveys her wide-eyed innocence. In the end though, I find her brand of torchy folk-pop a little too knowingly coy, and even the best songs here aren't really quite enough to convince me of Anna's standing amongst her contemporaries

David Kidman