Vocal stylist Elisabeth Lohninger’s latest album Eleven Promises due out in September
takes the listener on a sensuous journey through emotional passion lost and
emotional passion found. Working on a set of 11 original compositions written
by the singer either alone or in collaboration with her husband, pianist Walter
Fischbacher, and one additional piece, a totally original look at Antonio
Jobim’s classic “The Girl From Ipanema,” she hits song after song out of the
park. Her vocals are both carefully layered and intensely felt—art in the
service of emotion.
She is accompanied by a tight ensemble featuring Fischbacher
on keys, Goran Vujic on bass, Ulf Stricker on drums, along with guitarists Ben
Butler on two tracks and Pete McCann on two.
Highlights include “Birthday Girl,” a sensuous depiction of
the fragility of dreams of love in a world where “the more things change, the
more they stay the same.” It is a haunting, wistful melody evoking likely disappointment.
The alliterative “Mellow Moon Moaning” stresses the emotional need to seek love
in spite of the fear that its promised paradise may not be lasting. Fischbacker
adds some elegant piano solo work, curls of music leading to a climactic moment
of wordless vocal ecstasy from Lohninger, perhaps the album’s absolute peak
moment. Gary Shreiner guests on the chromatic harmonica on this track.
She shows another side when she offers up some social
criticism in “Merry Go Round,” which takes the idyllic image from childhood and
transforms it into a metaphor for useless repetition; human beings go round and
round, round and round trying to deal with the ills of society, but nothing
ever really changes. The repetition of the phrase mirrors the repetition of the
merry go round. Repetition is a device she uses in the album’s title song as
well, except there it is used to reinforce the importance of the promises we
make to each other. Circularity and repetition seem to be tropes that stick
with the singer—there is even a song called “Circles.” The disc ends on an upbeat note with “Ya Mi
Corazon,” a tune, we are told, based on “Cuenta con los Santos” by Tirso
Duarte.
Elisabeth Lohninger is a fine singer and her original songs
provide her with ample opportunity to show what she can do.
