Search - Stan Ridgway :: Anatomy

The Movie Continues: Stan's Best (So Far)

MG Nagy | 09/22/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Anatomy" is another incredible soundtrack for the underbelly of America. Stan is the most under rated songwriter on this side of the Atlantic, with 12 new examples that labor the point.



The cover art is a nod to film scoring, with a nice take/update of the jacket for Duke Ellington's "Anatomy Of A Murder" soundtrack, by way of the graphics used in the TV show "The Wild Wild West."



The two tracks pulled from the "Film Songs" EP sound a bit better here. "Susie Before Sunrise" sounds a little more crisp, while "Deep Blue Polka Dot" (aka "Deep Inside We're Blue") gets a bit of a remix.



The use of instrumental interludes are perfected on this record. You can almost see the betrayal (A desparate kiss? Or maybe a tired sunrise) during "Murray's Steakhouse Story," while "Mickey The Priest" is an absolutely creepy interlude, bringing "Valerie Is Sleeping" and "Mama Had A Stove" together brilliantly. The triptych works well as a companion to Richard Thompson's "Killing Jar," while "Sixteen Tons" is going to stand as the definitive read for a long, long time.



A five star rating for a six star record.



"Maybe someday you'll finally reveal / something you stole, or something you'll steal.""

Stan's Train Of Thought

CKL | Pa. | 10/23/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Solid songwriting and delivery, coupled with masterful sonic composition make this album well worth the wait. I've always been impressed with the ambiance of Stan's production. Even so, I thought BLACK DIAMOND was a move forward... kind of a broadening and deepening around the edges... pulling you a little further inside the scenes in the songs. ANATOMY seems deeper yet.The pace of the album is even ... a deliberate stroll through the Weird Zones with plenty of time to mull over the fate of the subjects or duck whatever the hell keeps swooping out of nowhere from just beyond the peripheral vision. I can imagine Brian Eno listening to this and nodding quietly to himself while thumbing through the booklet to check out the production credits. 'Susie Before Sunrise' and 'Deep Blue Polka Dot' (formerly 'Deep Inside We're Blue') are both excellent songs once available on the now deleted FILM SONGS EP, although the latter gets a slightly different mix here. 'Murray's Steakhouse Story', 'Sweet Pig Alley' and 'Mickey The Priest' are short instrumentals that make you wish they would just get on with it and start releasing the soundtracks to the movies for which Stan's been supplying the background music (his credits include five recent films). 'Mission Bell' is classic Ridgway... haunting guitar floating through a sinister 'high lonesome' storyline. More twisted tales are found in the excellent 'Valerie Is Sleeping' and 'Mama Had A Stove', while you can almost smell the coal dust drifting through the nearly seven minute take on Merle Travis' classic 'Sixteen Tons'.A new adventure in Liquid Audio adds six live tracks to this package (three on the CD itself and three online)."

Anthems for L.A.

Pete Magritte | Santa Monica, CA USA | 02/05/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Stan Ridgway's early contributions with Wall of Voodoo were to offer a sort of indie-New Wave-noir Sinatraist soundtrack to the landscape of Los Angeles. With "Anatomy" Ridgway returns to those roots while also incorporating the sophisticated and polished world weariness of Sinatra himself, a brilliant gloss that only being twenty years older and "still struggling" can add. The best musicians, like the best poets, are the voice for some city or place and Ridgway's best work since WOV has always evoked the shadowy but sun-smoked back alleys of L.A., that lonesome harmonica rifting through his songs like Santa Anas rustling through the palm trees. I fell out of touch with old Stanard for a spell (that whole Drywall "Oracle" period in the mid-Nineties didn't seem to be especially fresh) but heard "Anatomy" playing in some video store and immediately liked it. "Anatomy" seems to me to be Ridgway's most consistent work since his Wall of Voodoo days and I find "Mission Bell," "Train of Thought," and "Whistle for Louise" to be especially compelling, great even. If you have any sense of L.A. as a state of mind (or emotion), then you can't help but like this CD. In its own vivid way, Ridgway's "Anatomy" is a wonderful set of romantic ballads, odes and bluesy anthems to the mystique of living in Los Angeles."