Review- Tom Waits' Blood Money and Alice (both 2002, Anti- Records)

-by Christian B. Carey, Ph.D.

Each album takes a theatrical work by Waits and lyricist Kathleen Brennan as its basis and an important literary work as its inspiration. Alice is loosely based on imagery from Lewis Carroll, whereas Blood Money takes Anton Buchner's 1837 play Wozzeck as its starting point (it is also the story upon which Alban Berg's seminal opera of the same name was based). As concept-oriented and dependent on dramatic narrative as this seems to make these records, it relegates neither of them to the status of 'soundtrack' albums. Indeed, much like Waits' previous albums which were based on staged musical works, Frank's Wild Years and The Black Rider, both of these new recordings function quite well as stand-alone works. Ironically, 1999's Mule Variations seems much more unified in conception, by 'mule songs' of all things, than either Alice or Blood Money, which both appear much more allusive and varied in their imagery.

A difference in tone between the two releases is evident just in comparing their opening tracks. Alice opens with an evocative title track, featuring a smoky noir-esque combo of blues saxophone, muted trumpet and Waits' irrepressible lounge piano, along with the otherworldly addition of glockenspiel. The sound world of Alice immediately grips the listener, drawing him into Waits' and Brennan's tapestry of bent tales and blurred visions. Bloody Money, on the other hand opens with a track entitled "Misery is the River of the World." A much darker and relentless piece (its title line being repeated over and over again throughout the song in various inflections of despair), "Misery is the River of the World," like Alice, features a pitched percussion instrument as part of its arrangement. This time Waits uses the more biting attack of a marimba instead of a glockenspiel's ethereal chiming. The resultant sonic tapestry sets an entirely different mood for the opening of Bloody Money- more brooding than the almost impressionistic orchestration found on Alice.

The contrast between these opening tracks is, to a degree, instructive of what follows on the two recordings. Blood Money is the more relentless of the two, much like Buchner's vision in Wozzeck, whereas Alice mirrors Carroll's more fanciful writings. Blood Money is populated by such songs as "Woe", "Everything Goes to Hell" and "Knife Chase", making it one of the most somber albums in Waits' already relatively bleak catalogue. And while one would like to ascribe a more whimsical tone to the proceedings of Alice, populated as it is with one of Waits' most delightful carnival creations in the bodiless itinerant ragtime pianist "Tabletop Joe," Waits knows the post-Freudian interpretations of Carroll all too well, and includes darkness aplenty on both releases. Thus, Waits' take on Carroll also includes the nightmarish "Poor Edward," in which one of a man's two faces talks the other into hanging himself (talk about Post-Freudian). Ironically, given the Buchner impetus of Blood Money, it is Alice that gets a song in German, the uproarious "Kommienezuspadt", which sounds rather like a raspy-throated version of Joel Grey as the Emcee in Cabaret.

Apropos of raspy throats, Waits sings remarkably well here, especially given the abuse he has dealt to his own pipes over the years, between bourbon, cigarettes, and cultivating sundry growls and screams as musical sound effects. He is mercurially able to inhabit an entire host of characters over the course of the two records, exhibiting considerable flexibility, range and imagination. Both records share many of the same ensemble members, including frequent Waits collaborators guitarist Joe Gore and bassist Larry Taylor, amongst others. Waits has also introduced some new members to his band, notably cellist Matt Brubeck (son of the legendary jazz pianist Dave Brubeck), who skillfully integrates himself into the arrangements of many of the songs on both albums with a variety of bowed and plucked playing styles. Cello is not often an integral part of pop records except as part of a string section; its tasteful employment here is a real treat. Ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland guests on both albums - a pairing that works well, but that I certainly hadn't imagined before!

Despite the new faces, much of the sound world on Blood Money and Alice will be familiar to Waits fans. It combines the percussive effects of experimental composer Harry Partch (another Great Hobo) with 1920s Berlin cabaret music ala Kurt Weill, woven into an American Gothic mythology with liberal doses of blues and beatnik jazz thrown into the mix. Waits first hinted at this aesthetic on 1980's Heart Attack and Vine, but it sprang full blown into the world on his subsequent trio of albums - Rain Dogs, Swordfishtrombones, and Frank's Wild Years. That being said, Blood Money and Alice do not sound in any way like retreads. Although the orchestrations may seem familiar, they are more sure-footed than ever. And, while there may be no new dramatically new ground broken on either album, there is more of a chamber ensemble dynamic to them that moves Waits' work away from the realm of the rock album and closer to the milieu of the song cycle.

While some may lament the absence of a surface sheen of rocking out, it seems natural that Waits might dispense with this in order to be able to explore the brooding imagery of his subject matter. As such, Alice and Blood Money seem more cohesive than anything Waits has done in the past decade. Rather than weirdly eclectic, as his music seemed during the 1980's (which was, I am sure, part of its initial appeal to some), his music now seems instead to be weirdly organic. Whether this is sign of Waits' growth as an artist or a symptom of our familiarity with his distopian carnival hijinks, I am not sure. But either way, playing Alice and Blood Money back to back is a darkly lovely way to spend a couple of hours.

-New Jersey, May 28, 2002.