REVIEW: Lullaby Baxter Trio, Capable Egg (Atlantic)
- Chris Hill
Begin with female vocals akin to Rufus Wainwright's soft tones, mix in his cadence and torch song flair, dollop in a spoonful of Louisiana backwater, back porch blues, then a quart of Oranj Symphonette Wonka juice, and you've got the basic recipe for Lullaby Baxter Trio's CD: songs of play ("Morty-Mort-Morton Showstopper Calhoun") and pathos ("The Anyway Song").
The Trio, as far as I can tell, is a duo: singer/guitarist Lullaby Baxter (born Angelina Iapaolo) and lyricist Lutwidge Sedgwick. The third member is likely producer Yves Beauvais, credited with the idea of using the Oranj Symphonette as backing musicians. The eclectic group brings both unusual (Chinese horn, Farfisa organ, bird calls, Casio drums, train whistle, accordion) and traditional (cello, violin, clarinet, guitar, bass, drums) instrumentation to the project, all played with straight faces.
Sedgwick -- these names are almost too good to be true -- uses storybook wordplay and references for the lyrics; some straightforward, some subversive, depending on the need. The sweet candy is caustic in "Hopscotch" ("With a hey and a ho/ and a hey nonino/ Diddle diddle dum dum/ ...You were already a little nowhere/ Now you've finally disappeared my dear/ Hooray and toodleloo"), while "Lullaby" has an enchanting "Chan Marshall vision of a Maurice Sendak doughy fable" feel: "Clouds, nighty-night/ Stars, beddy-bye/ Clocks, nighty-night/ Shoes, beddy-bye." Sedgwick's oddball writing encourages smiling when expected endings -- "There's a moocow in my ear/ Lullaby and clouds/ Cockledoodledon't" -- take an unexpected turn.
Within the same vocal palette, Baxter uses different colors: a mix of croon and soft Cindy Brady lisp on "The Anyway Song," sly winking blues on "Rooster in Love," pacifying tones on "Lullaby," a barker's enticement on the circus waltz "Spacegirl."
"Knucklehead" has an Andy Partridge nonsense tune air -- "Butterflies wear boxing gloves/ To clobber all the ones you love/ Poor poor Knucklehead/ Is that why your little missus lives under the bed?" -- plus a burbling electric organ that adds a cocktail lounge smoke. "Ding-A-Ling," with its wood block, has a Roy Rogers cowboy rhythm that prods the pitiable "Why'd you bring the ding-a-ling?/ All she wants to do is sing/ Her ding-a-ling songs" lyrics along to a read-between-the-lines conclusion.
This disc could have been too cute for its own good, but the combination of lyrics, music, and Baxter's vocals make it palatable for both child and adults. A sidebar, however: if you're going to succumb to the hidden track impulse, don't add intervening time between the last and "hidden" tracks. The empty minutes tick slowly by waiting for a 13th track (a lightly-strummed guitar version of "Ding-A-Ling") to begin.
