Lori Carson ‘Everything I Touch Runs Wild’

Paul McCartney and Wife Narrowly Avoid Helicopter Crash »

Lori Carson ‘Everything I Touch Runs Wild’

Posted 11 Nov 2012 in Albums of 1997, Albums of the 90s, Federico Moreno, Todd Rundgren

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#809 in the Series) is Lori Carson, Everything I Touch Runs Wild

Of all the foggy things that I remember well about the days of the turn of the century, one of them is the music the some friends and I were listening …

You know, it was 2000, 2001: bonfires, lasers, champagne, lovers, the Y2K paranoia, and the mist of it all. I was happy as a child then, living in a little country town far from Buenos Aires: a strange, petit city plenty of smart and cosmopolitan people by those years.

It was full moon, in a marvelous and calm summer night, and we were anticipating the celebration with full blast Hi-Fi, maybe in a childish way, to conjure our shady fears of restless grown-ups in the verge of the fin-de-siècle: survivors living in the finisterre, our own personal finisterre…

So there was Morphine (the band, not the drug!), Massive Attack, Pulp & Jarvis Cocker…

In an attempt to calm down the surface of the waters of those eerie hours previous to 12:00 pm, I took a pair of albums out of the shelves. Albums that I had bought a couple of days earlier at some darkened spot at Avenida Corrientes, heart of BA. CDs that I had not never listened before.

Ok, ok, I had some clue about the artist behind the music: an enigmatic and sexy chanteuse who fronted, charmingly, that musical collective called The Golden Palominos a couple of years before, in the terrific This Is How it Feels album.

So I was expecting some kind of ambient vibe, more or less in the style of Arto Lindsay, but not…

Err… not!

First it was a deeply sinuous song about love; not about possession, but about being possessed: ¨Something´s Got Me¨, a sensual take about erotic depersonalization, and one of my favourite mood songs.

Then came some very quiet and introspective pieces, in a style sometimes reminiscent of Rickie Lee Jones, sometimes reminiscent of Syd Straw or Jane Siberry, but only that: Lori wears all of those guessed influences with utmost elegance, and in the end, the music reveals itself as intrinsically unique, marvellously personal and unpretentious: the watermark of the best singer-songwriters around.

And not least: a terrific and sexy cover of Todd Rundgren´s ¨I Saw The Light¨, a bona-fide erotic epiphany anthem that reminds me, obliquely, of Roxy Music’s ¨Avalon.¨

But my favourite, -an exquisitely sad song-, is the one that gives its name to the album. It portrays in itself, with spare and melancholic wording, the perfect definition of that careless touch that brings down everything love related. For me, it was a revelation to hear about feelings that I know well, but from a femme´s perspective, and painted with such mastery for impressionist songwriting: one extra word would be out of place, and one less word and the song would be incomplete; but as it is, is perfect. Period.

My friends and I were listening silently to that album from start to finish, tasting it like some fine Chardonnay: enjoying every touch of bittersweet, every note of demisec, both acidic and dulcet, marinated in scented, perfumed bouquet.

And I remember Tony, one of my friends then present at home, telling me ¨oh, please, play that damned album once again¨…

But there was no time: Stars was waiting in the jewel box, begging to be heard…

And in an hour or so, bonfires, dance music and some more Chardonnay would take command of that wild, unforgettable night.

— Federico Moreno, Buenos Aires, Argentina