Great New Musical Release by Producer Evan Beigel
07/02/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Evan Beigel does it again with Tempermental Angel."
Pop Stops, Star Newspapers, Chicago
gilli moon | Sherman Oaks, CA USA | 01/30/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Pop Stops. Star NewspapersThe promise is fulfilled!Last summer, I reviewed Girl In The Moon, gilli moon's debut CD, which I stumbled upon through the Internet (its "Girl in the Moon" was a hugely popular MP3 download, and one of my favorite songs of last year).Now gilli moon, a Californian these days by way of Australia, by way of Italy (and known to her family as Gilli Aliotti), is releasing her second solo disc this month, and it's an even stronger collection than her first. An amazingly mature and complex album, Temperamental Angel speaks to the bare emotions of love, hate, empowering sensuality and hand-tying vulnerability in all of us.The album opens with "Communication," a spoken word piece which observes "we all have different masks we wear. We are complex individuals with complex personalities ... I am sweet, loving, angelic, and angry, unheard, demonic ..."Moon bravely examines these dichotomies throughout Temperamental Angel. In the title track, her whispery, lilting upper register brings to mind a young Kate Bush, mixed with the angst of Alanis Morissette, as she admits "I'm a sucker for conventional romance" and considers "what if I had never experienced this period in my life?"Temperamental Angel delivers with a wide swatch of styles and confessions. In "Naked," the bass cuts a sinuous groove as she admits with unembarrassed sensual honesty, "I like getting naked with you."In "Plenty," she melds a tinkly piano with a silky smooth bass and a quivering-on-the-edge of discovery vocal as she asks "will I cross the river to the other side of paradise? ... maybe ... will I see the rainbow like the fairytales my mother told so plenty?"The guitars crunch and twine beneath her as she quavers and twists, small whispering voices answering more assured declarations, a symphony of inner turmoil uncovered and recorded.Then in "Swimming," a somber piano backs her as she sings a deeply emotional, stirringly beautiful hymn of loss, revealing that "I lost what I never thought I'd find/I'm swimming dark and blind ...was it all a lie?" She struts and growls in the pounding "Disgrace," gets confrontationally funky in "Touch Me," and slips into forgivably gorgeous schmaltz with the Burt Bacharach-like horn arrangement of the melancholic "Why Do You Love Me Still?"Temperamental Angel proves that you don't have to be on a major label with a million dollar budget to make a great record. Because gilli moon's not, and Temperamental Angel is. Seek this one out (and read the diary of the making of the album) at www.gillimoon.com.John Everson Music Critic The Star Newspapers, Chicago"
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1