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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 06 November 2006 |
Chinatown is the second Be Good Tanyas album, released in 2003.
Click here to buy Chinatown from HMV - with free delivery
Track Listing
1. It's Not Happening
2. Waiting Around To Die
3. The Junkie Song
4. Ship Out On The Sea
5. Dogsong 2
6. Rowdy Blues
7. Reuben
8. House Of The Rising Sun
9. In Spite Of All The Damage
10. Lonesome Blues
11. In My Time Of Dying
12. I Wish My Baby Was Born
13. Horses
14. Midnight Moonlight
Chinatown Reviews
BBC
The Be Good Tanyas are the sound of the old New World, all banjos, mandolins, harmonicas and ukuleles combining to a beautifully harmonious effect.
Chinatown is the second part of their story, following up their highly acclaimed debut Blue Horse, and it takes on the apple pie drama and the breathless love of that album and runs with it.
This is folk, Canadian style, as the Vancouver trio sweeten some traditional and some original tunes into a delightful and very different album.
Of the traditional tunes, it's House Of The Rising Sun and In My Time Of Dying that really stand out. Vastly different from the versions made famous by the Animals and Led Zeppelin, House takes an upbeat twist, while Time twangs along in a foot tapping way.
Elsewhere, the album wanders through drug addiction, birth, love, death and travelling on a journey that is as sweet as a daisy and as sharp as a knife.
The Be Good Tanyas are very different to the usual things that drop across your ear, they sit outside the world of popular music and they are a wonderfully welcome change.
Amazon
If, as many purists believe, the best country music is the bleakest, then Chinatown is a tremendous leap forward for the Be Good Tanyas. Whereas their debut album, The Blue Horse, focused on the sweeter side of traditional Appalachian music with a chirpy, naïve charm, Chinatown finds the three Canadian songbirds diving headlong into the dark. For their second release, the Be Good Tanyas follow the traditionalist route mapped out by Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, eschewing the neo-traditionalism of Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek which was hinted at on The Blue Horse. The result is a revelation.
Chinatown drips with twisted pathos, reflected in both their choices of songs (Townes Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die", their self-penned "Junkie Song" and the modern standards "House of the Rising Sun" and "In My Time of Dying") and their delivery, which is sincere without being overly maudlin. Chinatown's slower pace, and overall more melancholy theme, allow the trio more room to flex their three-part vocal harmonies and able fingerpicking skills, which they flesh out once again with the non-traditional (but always subtle) backing of bass and drums. This results in an inspired and breathtaking reading of Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die", as well as a relatively upbeat take on the traditional "Reuben", here reclaimed as a sort of bluegrass "I Will Survive". Though not as polished as its predecessor, Chinatown is just as much a gem. --Robert Burrow
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 November 2006 )
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