Customer Reviews

An Invitation

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"An Invitation" is a collaboration across generations and a recording to treasure. Inara George and Van Dyke Parks go back a long way -- to 1974, when Inara (daughter of Little Feat's Lowell George) was born.

"An Invitation" is much like a theater-piece, complete with overture and a closing "Good night, good night to all of you." The songs are beautiful and spare; George sings them in a strong, cool, unstagey voice that makes the meaning of every word register. Her poignant and witty lyrics offer varied glimpses of someone in love, desirous, self-abasing, jubilant, ruefully self-aware, still hopeful. Parks' arrangements for small orchestra are elegant and endlessly supportive.

"An Invitation" is inviting. I've listened to this CD five times in two days, and will be listening again and again. It's contemporary music of the highest order.

The review title says it all. I count myself extremely fortunate that I stumbled across this record by accident. It was the happiest accident I've had in years.

A beautiful voice, sometimes quirky tunes, and the amazingly lush arrangements by Van Dyke Parks.

I can't stress enough how delighted I am with this record. The orchestral arrangements are so beautiful I could even listen to the record without the vocals and still be taken by it.

No, you don't have to be a fan of this-or-that type of music to enjoy it. Rather, you just have to have a sense of and appreciation for the carefree whimsy of songwriting and music in general.

I love Inara George and own all her CDs including her solo work, Merrick, and Bird and the Bee. Unfortunately I did not like her collaboration with Van Dyke Parks on An Invitation. The orchestra music drowns out her voice and is a constant distraction making hard to detect the melody of the song. I have played it several times but find it a noticeable dissappointment compared to how much I have enjoyed all her other music.

The L.A. Weekley mentioned in passing that the great Van Dyke Parks had made a new album with someone I've never heard of. First thing I did whne i got home was check on Amazon for this album. When I saw the album, I was worried. It looked like it could be potential hipster garbage. So, I took the risk, coughed up thirteen bucks, and bought the CD.

I remember when I opened the brown Amazon box, I was very impressed by this little CD's colorful and cute packaging. As soon as I noticed the little rabits and birds in the pile of food, I couldn't help it, but smile in glee. I went straight toward my stereo, plopped in the CD, and hit play.

What I heard threw me off. It sounded like Van Dyke Parks, with all the odd key changes and lush orchestration for smaller broadway style groups. Then on the second track came the vocals. I usually avoid most contemporary music so I was caught off guard when this quiet, mousey, jazzy voice came through the speakrs, singing something closer to poetry than just lyrics on a page.

I listened to about half the album, and then had to go somewhere. Everyday since, I've avoided that and tried listening to it the whole way through everyday. Every song has a simple joy to it, something severally lacking in art today. This CD is most definatly up there with the best contemporary popular music albums I've heard in the last few years.

Daughter of Little Feat's Lowell George, Inara has established herself as a quietly cool pop vocalist on her solo projects (e.g., All Rise ) and as one half of The Bird and the Bee. An Invitation is clearly a stretch for her. George relies solely on strings to bring the songs across. Parks' busy chamber orchestrations dance and flitter around George's uncharacteristically meandering material, giving the vocals a careless, improvised quality. Listening to this is like trying to traverse a stream by crossing its slippery rocks (George's vocals) while being entranced by the natural beauty of the surrounding woods (Parks' string arrangements). You're gonna fall down. You're gonna get wet. And you're not gonna remember a thing. **1/2

After finding and thoroughly enjoying this artist's first album "All Rise", I went in search of more of her music and found "An Invitation". At first, I wasn't sure exactly what to make of the intriguing, but rather strange sample clips, but I figured I'd keep returning for another listen out of sheer curiosity if nothing else, so I made the purchase.

I'm so glad my curiosity got the best of me in this case - it has been months now and I've listened to this album so many times, but it still sounds as startling and fresh as the first time. "An Invitation" is a challenging and intellectual collection of flitting strings, sneaky bursts of woodwinds, and twirling, counter-intuitive melodies. The instrumental arrangements are demanding and are as much of a "voice" as the beautiful vocals, forming more of a duet than a backdrop.

This album is evocative and theatrical. Like some of my other favorite albums, it is one of those pieces of music that become almost multisensory the more attention you turn toward it, inspiring both images and sensations. Visions of a dramatically-lit concert hall or a black and white film rolling along on stage in a gilded theater tend to spring to mind when I listen to this music. There's a quality of nostalgia here, a jazzy feeling that reminds me vaguely of the 30's and 40's music my grandfather loves (incidentally, he likes this album too, since I introduced him to it!).

It is easy for me to rave about this album, but at the same time, it's not one I'd easily recommend - "An Invitation" is such a strong flavor and will not appeal to everyone. It is pretty obstinate about not fading into the background, a real show-stealer. If you find yourself intrigued, fascinated, or curious after listening to the samples a few times, give it a try and you might find a new favorite! If you are looking for more of her first album, you might be a bit disappointed by this one, unless you really enjoyed the jazzier moments of "All Rise".

I'm trying to find something positive to say about this album. Inara George's voice is clear and beautiful. I believe she wrote the lyrics, which are also quite good (if sometimes oblique), and some of the melodies are uncommon and intriguing.

That said, the main accompaniment is Van Dyke Parks and his string arrangements. I wont argue with anyone who likes them, but I have to be blunt about my own reaction: the orchestral parts are busy, harmonically dense, the rhythms lope, flit, and lurch uncomfortably without a steady beat, and they basically just dance all over the place, with unrelenting hyperactivity. Not only are the arrangements hyperactive, they seem dynamically constricted. There is a want of pianissimo and fortissimo. Furries of notes and chord changes cannot substitute for dynamic contrasts between loud and soft to add life and drama to the music. I guess this is a factor that doesn't concern Van Dyke Parks.

This album contains a number of good songs (Duet), even beautiful songs (Rough Design), struggling to get out from under the weight of the arrangements.

For me, listening is a fatiguing experience. I loved Inara George's other solo CD, All Rise, and her work with The Bird And The Bee. This is something in another vein altogether. While I do not begrudge the artist an opportunity to stretch and try something new, I can't bring myself to pay for that experimentation when it simply has no appeal for me. So, I'm not buying this, and I would strongly urge people to listen to cuts or sound samples before purchasing, to make sure you really want to pay for 40 minutes of this stuff. If you like it, for whatever reason, great. For me it was something I could endure, with only a few points of enjoyment.

I saw Inara George and Van Dyke Parks only two months ago in The Hague, Netherlands, performing with the Mondriaan extended. It was a great concert and besides songs of Van Dyke himself (jump f.e.), Randy Newman and Lowell George they did 'An invitation'.

Allthough I didn't know Inara George and only later bought 'An invitation' I was impressed by her performance and her voice. Like 'all rise' a cd I only had a week before the concert, the album grows and grows.
It doesn't fit in nowadays popmusic, but who cares? A song like Idaho is so beautifull. So I recommand this album (and 'all rise') to everyone and make a deep bow to miss George and mr Van Dyke Parks.

Not only i bought the cd, i also attended a concert, In Holland, of Inara George and van Dyke Parks! and live it's gives the same feeling, dreamy, sweet lyrics and a wonderful , typical Van Dyke Parks orchestration. a cd, you have to listen more times, and it grows more and more!

Imagine -- what if Regina Spektor were to conquer an orchestra, and recorded an album while keeping them in her thrall?

That about describes the sound of Inara George's second full-length solo album (no bird and the bee, no Living Sisters, nobody!), a quirkily orchestral collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. George's vivid songwriting and huskily pretty voice would be enough to make this a solid effort on their own, but the lovely backdrop of twitching swirling strings and faint accordion take the songs to a whole new level.

It opens with a trumpeting overture and nimble strings, and you can almost imagine a line of heralds welcoming George into a fully furnished little album. And then: "Wanna find the bottom of my heart/wanna be alone until I'm lonely," George sings plaintively, sounding weary and careworn. As the violins spin themselves around her, she tells us what she wants to do: "I want to have regrets/because I want to do absolutely all i can... open the door and find/a destination, a revelation/I'll see a ghost/he'll steal my voice and I'll begin again..."

The next two songs are both sprightlier and darker -- "Accidental" is a barbed little song with a lively melody ("when you speak to me/I speak too pleasantly/where's the knife? where's the fire?") and "Bomb" is a darker version of the same, with a more bittersweet tone. George slips through a wall of swaying strings and gentle accordion, sounding like she's singing a number in a musical set in Parisian springtime.

And after that, George dabbles in other pop songs filled with orchestral grandeur: a languid sunlit ballad ("I can break my heart before we start..."), angular melodies that meander through a maze of strings, wistful feather-light songs about someone who went to Idaho, dark ballads half-overwhelmed by urgent cascading violins, mellow pop tunes, and even mellower little love songs pillowed in nimble string sections ("Do you know your family tree?...
I could be your century/I wanna settle down/I could be your baby tree...").

Inara George's previous album "All Rise" had a folk-rockier sound -- when she wasn't murmuring through soft guitar ballads, she tried her hand at rock'n'roll and a little electronic-tinged pop. She's obviously gone through a lot of musical evolution since then, because "An Invitation" has little in common with her past work -- the songs on here sound less folk-rocky, and more like an orchestral Regina Spektor, or perhaps a more melodiously-voiced, less crack-fairy Joanna Newsom.

First of all, there are strings. Lots of strings. Whole streams of violins sweep, whirl, slice, merrily saunter, soar and cascade through the melodies, and when required to they can also chirp and twitter their way through the quirkier portions like a flock of string-powered birds. You can also hear some piano woven in there, along with some even mellower horns -- and of course the accordion pops up every now and then to give the songs a vaguely French flavour. If there's a problem with the instrumentation, it's that often the melodies sound very similar from one song to the next.

But lovely as the instrumentation is, George's voice is what really sells this -- husky, sweet and flexible, and able to stand above all the strings and accordions without having to try too hard. She can half-speak through a quirky love song ("... hoping for a little rest/while fighting off your sleeplessness/haunted by the ghost of you/reminds you what you didn't do") as easily as she can sing vivid ones ("skin and bones and blood and stones/and gold and lace and men and mice... a state of mind to intertwine/now love is blind/a rough design but still sturdy").

Inara George's second solo album lives up to its inviting title, and manages to mix quirky indiepop and classical instrumentation with few hiccups. Lovely.