Customer Reviews

afraid of me

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In an era when music (and musicians) are micro-managed into existence by corporate production teams, it's getting harder and harder to find anything that sounds the remotest bit "real." The songs, playing, and words on this CD, by one-woman-band Marianne Nowottny, come straight from the solar plexus, but this music is NOT alterna-rock balladeering. It's synth/art/poetry/classical/goth/pop, completely original and hook-y as hell. Some words are slurred together almost like scat-singing, but the lyric sheet reveals a complex, contradictory discourse, in which cliches ("see with new eyes") are followed with harsh twists ("speak with new lies"). Diverse musical influences--raga, baroque classical, Gary Numan, Jerry Lee Lewis--are effortlessly merged, not in the cut-and-paste manner of stadium prog-rock but with an intuitive inner logic. There are rough edges here that those corporate teams would snip out and smooth over, but I'll take the unpolished over the manufactured any day.

A jarring mixture of pathos-infected purging and swirling lo-fi keyboards, Nowottny's debut CD evokes a reaction. A reaction in the sence that everyone will be drawn differently, but no less powerfully. "Afraid of Me" is a nightmare, but an attractive one. The cover artwork is striking- a pasty princess set against an aqua wall. The music - a 16-year-old New Jersey high school student tripping on acid and mimicking Lou Reed's "Berlin" as best she can without waking the neighbors - will inform your dreams and vice-versa. Not unlike David Cronenberg's "eXistenZ", where life is a game within a game, Nowottny drags the listener way farther down than they deserve. If you remember hearing PJ Harvey for the first time and it still makes you feel, well, funny, than "Afraid of Me" is for you. Never has absolute schizophrenia and intense sexual tension been so un-ironically mastered by a goth kid dressed like Moroccan royalty. Buy at your own risk, whick I mean in a good way. (Brett Essler)

In an era when music (and musicians) are micro-managed into existence by corporate production teams, it's getting harder and harder to find anything that sounds the remotest bit "real." The songs, playing, and words on this CD, by one-woman-band Marianne Nowottny, come straight from the solar plexus, but this music is NOT alterna-rock balladeering. It's synth/art/poetry/classical/goth/pop, completely original and hook-y as hell. Some words are slurred together almost like scat-singing, but the lyric sheet reveals a complex, contradictory discourse, in which cliches ("see with new eyes") are followed with harsh twists ("speak with new lies"). Diverse musical influences--raga, baroque classical, Gary Numan, Jerry Lee Lewis--are effortlessly merged, not in the cut-and-paste manner of stadium prog-rock but with an intuitive inner logic. There are rough edges here that those corporate teams would snip out and smooth over, but I'll take the unpolished over the manufactured any day.

While Marianne Nowottny, since Afraid of Me, clearly has evolved from her irreverent, rather whimsical, and seemingly aimless style to the more polished, metered, and developed (though by no means derivative or predictable) brand of music she is prodigiously producing now, hear where it all began. This album is a wonder and a period piece; a slice of a young teenage girl's life that is purely hers, untainted by most influences that other beginning artists would immediately embrace and strive to reproduce. Encapsulated in these (15?) songs is a broken-doll adolescence, a transition of a most strange and wondrous girl becoming an artist all on her own. Afraid of Me is a true journey, almost voyeuristic in its intimacy, along a path that is equally frightening and fulfilling.

i love this cd. i am a catholic boy, but her songs are very satisfying. really interesting, very unique, and just sonically intriguing. too bad i am not a "bell ringer"!

While Marianne Nowottny, since Afraid of Me, clearly has evolved from her irreverent, rather whimsical, and seemingly aimless style to the more polished, metered, and developed (though by no means derivative or predictable) brand of music she is prodigiously producing now, hear where it all began. This album is a wonder and a period piece; a slice of a young teenage girl's life that is purely hers, untainted by most influences that other beginning artists would immediately embrace and strive to reproduce. Encapsulated in these (15?) songs is a broken-doll adolescence, a transition of a most strange and wondrous girl becoming an artist all on her own. Afraid of Me is a true journey, almost voyeuristic in its intimacy, along a path that is equally frightening and fulfilling.

this album is really great. i haven't actually listened to it, but the photo on the front is timeless and HOTT so i feel inclined to give this a great review. i don't even have to listen to this to know it's fantastic. she's got smoky pipes, a hip new/old style, her lyrics are perplexing, and she's just GOT IT! ALBUMO NUMERO UNO!