Search - Anita Lane :: Dirty Pearl

Dark, Sultry Beauty

Nathan Hobby | Perth, Western Australia | 01/14/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Anita Lane was Nick Cave's muse from when he was still at school until the heady early days of the Bad Seeds. She co-wrote Her To Eternity and Kindness of Strangers, amongst others. This collection of her (all too few) recordings until 1995 is full of seduction, dark fairy lands, and a guilty, innocent girl who enchants with her beauty and her voice. The album is diverse, from a sultry cover of 'Sexual Healing' to Birthday Party backed postpunk 'Fullness of His Coming'. Binding it together is persistent strangeness. The highlight tracks are the spookily poetic 'Blume' and 'Subterrenean World', and the upbeat disco cover 'Lost In Music'. Anita is underrated and underknown. If you can find a copy of Dirty Pearl, get it. 'For you I will be a sunflower/ Do you hear my enlightening laughter?/ Another reason to cut off an ear/' (Blume)"