The Living Jarboe "Disburden Disciple" 2000 (67:47)
Bound
(6:56)
Consume Me (5:36)
Dear
666 (5:12)
Kiss of Life (3:05)
Scorpion (6:44)
Under (6:44)
The Seance (7:04)
Forbid
(5:25)
Forgive (6:22)
Scarification
(5:01)
Pure War (9:38)
Jarboe returns with her second self released album, the fifth to date of her solo career. In the past two years she has continued to develop as a person and artist through world travel and numerous new collaborations and projects, such as a live performances with the new The Living Jarboe band and an in depth, interactive web site. This disc is actually volume 1 of an eventual 4 under the "Disburden Disciple" title. Jarboe considers the first post SWANS album "Anhedoniac" her 'disease' album and this one the 'healing' album. Both seem to me to be part of the cathartic, exploratory process of re-birth and growth, a further moving away from the music, image and love/hate issues of her past. Most songs have a guitar/bass/drums band based core interjected with bits of Middle Eastern flavored percussion, loops, piano and strings. And, of course, the voice. The many poetic voices and moody personas that Jarboe conjures and unleashes from within ... from the starkly beautiful to the downright frightening. Overall the album is fairly quiet and restrained, in a good way, save for a raucous rock and roll outro for "Bound" and a blood curdling scream finale for "Scarification". The mid-section of the album (most notably "Kiss of Life", "Under" and "The Seance") veers off into more 'artsy' areas with theatrical lyrical/vocal passages and sound effects - the relative low points in my opinion. "Consume Me", "Scorpion", "Forbid" and "Forgive" provide the more gentle moments with pretty voices and lush guitar atmospheres. "Dear 666" features a slightly acidic voice set against the intriguing slow motion interplay of rough around the edges guitar and bass lines. "Scarification" and "Pure War" are both primal in feel with the vocals and percussion groove at the forefront, the latter also embedded with field recordings from Israel. "Disburden Disciple" is everything you'd expect from Jarboe: a genuinely unique and richly varied listening experience that will take much time to fully digest. This is the result of someone successfully carving their own path and thankfully sharing those results with others ...
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via The Living Jarboe.