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Carina Round

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Albums4
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AboutWe live in the age of the short attention span- where vacuousness is a virtue, where time to stop and think is really found and where everything goes in one ear and out the other. But if you are still reading this, it suggests you may still be looking for someone or something more substantial and rewarding than the hoards of tight-troused retro- rockers or gay-for- pay gimmick peddlers of present day pop. Carina Round may not have the kind of slacks that court infertility and she probably won't share a snog with another girl if it gets her video played on MTV (although we can hope) but when regarding the essence of her music, there are few more arresting and striking sounds available to the human ear. I wanna make people feel something, explains Carina on her personal motivation. The music that I listen to most is the kind that reflects something that I feel. After all, isn't that why we all listen to music? To be excited and to be thrown into upheavel? Growing up in the deprived Low Hill area of Wolverhampton, external recreation was a limited for a young Carina. It's not the sort of place my mother was willing to let me run around so all i had was what was in the house - mainly books and records. My most prized possession as a kid was a turntable I was given for my fifth birthday. Revelling in the delights of Dylan and Simone, an infant Carina found the kind of artistic vocabulary that most people don't gain until their late teens and with that head-start, it's hardly surprising that her first album, The First Blood Mystery emerged in 2001 when she was just 22.

Dealing with subject of her fathers continuing absence, the display of naked emotion through a rough and raw sound drew rave reviews from the more clued-up areas of the music press who saw shades of P J Harvey, Kristin Hersh and Patti Smith in the albums autobiographical energy. I've always been influenced by sentiment rather than style, continues Carina. So I think I have taken more from Charles Bukowski, Dorothy Parker, Tom Waits and Bjork. The way they articulate ideas and emotions is more important then their respective styles. Gigs with the likes of Coldplay, Elbow, Ryan Adams, Turin Brakes, Ben & Jason, David Gray, Ed Harcourt, and some old geezer called James Brown (he's the Godfather of soul apparently) also helped raise her profile and now, the long overdue follow-up, The Disconnection looks set to continue that ascension and with it,the woefully inaccurate idea of Carina as tortured-soul type will finally be laid to rest even for those who continually equate singer-songwriters with being wilfully complex. It's still a personal record but this time, it's a celebration of the things I've discovered about myself as opposed to ranting about the things that bother me. Even the title is upbeat - Disconnection is about confronting things like joy, anger, pain and confusion and letting them go. In every aspeact, the only direction for Carina Round is forwards. See if you can keep up with her.

Interscope's US version of The Disconnection finds Carina Round staring out at us from the cover, a plain-faced beauty with a gentle gleam in her eye It's not cheesecake by any means, but it certainly means to catch the shallow eye But hey, what's that on the back cover? It's Carina tortured and smeared, a Videodrome diva with black holes for features She still stares at us, but it's with a detached dullness 'I did this to me,' it says 'If you want me, you get both sides' Most places in the world get the back cover as their front, but the duality of the domestic helps illustrate similar qualities in Round's music There's beauty here, but it's qualified by gloom and suggestions of fetish Equipped with pipes that wind from the sultriest depths to keening, aching highs, Round's vocals are a come-on and a put-down, a cry for help that chokes into anger or cynicism She's indebted to PJ Harvey (Dry, especially) in the way her willowy words orient the raw, wailing guitar and primitive percussion of 'Shoot' and 'Into My Blood' However, it's the enticing darkness of the cabaret, not wiry punk or the blues, that seems to be The Disconnection's real muse Bursts of horns join the catty flirt of 'Lacuna''s chorus, before its verses break into plunks of off-kilter piano behind Round's captivating intonation 'You're just looking for an excuse/To call yourself a f*ck up,' she dismisses, and the song ends with an intake of breath, as if she has a few more things to say about your no-account ass 'Paris' and 'Monument' link New York and The City of Light in the shadows, incorporating swishes of rangy acoustic guitar, subtle jazz rhythms, and overtures that devastate like that back-cover photo While electronic programming and samples of Carina herself do tick around in The Disconnection's backgrounds, the album keeps its 21st century cabaret vibe alive by supporting Round's vocals with organics — rich bass, spare percussion, aforementioned snatches of acoustic, the occasional horn part, and washes of Rhodes and harmonium At the same time, it's easy to imagine The Disconnection as trip-hop, if it had been issued in the processed mid-'90s haze of Portishead and Morcheeba's Big Calm It revels in the laconic dourness that made those albums great it can be pretty and lazy But when Round starts singing about black wings spreading overhead, or when the late-album standout 'Sit Tight' starts drifting between dusky, throaty R&B and a groove more irresistibly lurid, you begin to wonder whether you'll need more quarters to keep this peep show going.

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