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Christine Tobin

Secret Life of a Girl

Babel BDV 2875

Christine Tobin has been road-testing the material on this, her seventh Babel recording, for some time now (Vortex patrons in particular will view many of the songs as old friends), and it shows in the ease and assurance of their delivery on this superb album.

Her band ­ centred on the versatile, supremely adaptable guitar playing of Phil Robson, driven by bassist Dave Whitford, drummer Simon Lea and percussionist Thebe Lipere and augmented by the cogent but fluent piano of Liam Noble and the sonorous, elegant cello of Kate Shortt ­ is discreetly supportive, but vigorous where required (Robson's solo on the opener 'Bye Bye', for instance, is a small miracle of compressed power), but it is the celebrated Tobin voice, plaintive, languorous, infused with emotion but always tastefully controlled and graceful, that rivets the attention throughout a skilfully varied programme of originals and the odd Leonard Cohen or Rufus Wainwright number.

The fruitful collaboration with poet Eva Salzman continues ('Bye Bye'), Cohen/Robinson's 'Everybody Knows' receives a thoughtful reading that replaces the original's slightly sardonic tone with a sorrowful, sympathetic lament for this poor old doomed muckball we self-deluding creatures inhabit, and Wainwright fils's 'Poses' receives suitably poignant treatment, but it is Tobin's own compositions that ­ for their depth of feeling and the sheer subtlety of its expression ­ truly impress.

The dream world of a pre-adolescent girl ('Camille') or of a self-protecting post-adolescent ('Minx'), the worldly wisdom that comes from experience ('Dreamland') etc. ­ all are vividly dramatised in Tobin's carefully wrought songs; a flawless album, unreservedly recommended.

 

Order from The Babel Label