Vienna Teng - Dreaming Through the Noise
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Vienna TengEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-07-25
Music Label: Zoe Records
Soundtracks:
- Blue Caravan
- Whatever You Want
- Love Turns 40
- I Don't Feel So Well
- City Hall
- Nothing Without You
- Transcontinental, 1:30AM
- 1 BR/1 BA
- Now Three
- Pontchartrain
- Recessional
Free Music Notes for Dreaming Through the Noise
Free Music Review: Reinvention
Hit: 5 Stars
With Dreaming Through the Noise, Vienna Teng has ventured into new territory. The darker, more atmospheric tone of this album doesn't have a predecessor -- there's only a trace of similarity in earlier songs like "Momentum" and "Passage." Upon my first listen, I wasn't sure I liked this new style that much: Vienna's voice sounded strangely muted among trumpets and strings, and I wasn't happy that the piano took a backseat to the new instruments. This sound is more orchestral and on the whole, less lyrically complex. Her trademark storytelling songs have mostly been replaced with repeated choruses, syllables, and hums. The new lyrics are also not as accessible and a little more difficult to understand (think Radiohead and early Tori Amos), but the good news is that the gorgeously detailed music is worth the extra effort. This set of songs trades narratives for lush moods, and the result is no less beautiful. The readiest example: "Now Three" is about a child like "Lullabye For A Stormy Night" and "Anna Rose" from her first two albums, but instead of sentimental lyrics, Vienna relies on a more dense, haunting sound to evoke the mindset of someone overwhelmed by love. One thing that hasn't changed is her refreshing range of topics -- she tackles emotional instability in "I Don't Feel So Well," an apprehensive individual faced with a new apartment and noisy upstairs neighbors in the rocking "1BR/1BA," and current events in "Whatever You Want," a surprisingly upbeat song about corporate scandal, "Pontchartrain," an eerie, dreamy elegy for New Orleans, and "City Hall," a country-tinged celebration of the same-sex marriage rulings in San Francisco. My favorite song on the album is "Recessional," which chronicles of the rise and fall of a relationship in reverse. For anyone who might be disappointed by the lack of storytelling songs, this one proves she can still pack a punch.
I can't really rank this album against the others because it's so different -- moody, jazzy, full of longing, packed with minor keys, stringed solos, and...an accordion? Each one shows a different side of her, and I'm glad to add this one to the mix. Turn to Waking Hour for intimate confessionals, Warm Strangers for genre-defying sounds and storytelling, and DTTN for evocative soundscapes. It took a couple of listens, but I love this album and can't wait to see which direction she goes next. Put on your headphones, close your eyes, and rest assured that with three albums to her name, Vienna isn't through surprising everyone yet.
Dreaming Through the Noise Poster
One might call quitting a lucrative job as a software engineer for a life as a singer-songwriter a risky career move. Fortunately for Vienna Teng, it has paid off. Within two years of leaving her Silicon Valley career behind, 27-year-old Teng has appeared on the CBS Early Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and NPR, and has gained a large devoted fanbase through constant touring, selling 60,000 copies of her first two albums. Vienna Teng reaches a new musical pinnacle on her third album, and debut for Zoë/Rounder, 'Dreaming Through the Noise.' Producer Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux) provides Teng with the perfect setting for an unforgettable set of chamber-folk compositions, which showcase her sharp lyrical prowess as well as her skills as an accomplished pianist. The album's eleven original songs show both an amazing lyrical depth and a broad musical scope, which ranges from the perfect pop simplicity of "Whatever You Want" to the stunning musical tour de force of "Ponchartrain." Clearly her most ambitious work to date, 'Dreaming Through the Noise' confirms Vienna Teng as a brilliant young songwriter at the top of her craft.Experimental singer-songwriter Vienna Teng arrives at her ambitious third album at the peak of her considerable powers, with renowned producer/bassist Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux) providing a more textured and atmospheric landscape. Contributions from musicians Jay Bellerose (Paula Cole, Duncan Sheik), Carla Kihlstedt (Tom Waits), and Marc Orton (Bill Frisell) make Teng's piano-based, jazzy chamber-folk shiver with new intimacy. But at the core, she remains as seductive and transcendent as ever, even as lyrically she takes more of a storytelling approach. Marrying complex melodies and moody tones to captivating lyrics about fevered longings, unspoken truths, and uncharted suffering, the former software engineer pulls listeners into a secret, subterranean world that is often as murky and disturbing as it is wondrous. On "Whatever You Want," a dutiful "company man" and his perfect wife pull back the curtain to reveal a disquieting darkness. In "I Don't Feel So Well," an unbalanced woman issues a provocative warning to a potential lover ("I thought you should know before you fall"). And on "Now Three," delicate cello lines play off a nearly mystical lyric about prenatal knowing. Teng delivers all 11 offerings in a chillingly pure soprano, multitracking her own voice 32 times on the Hurricane Katrina-inspired (if also overlong and ponderous) "Pontchartrain" to achieve something reminiscent of a Latin liturgical piece. Not yet 28 and frighteningly gifted ("Lake Pontchartrain is haunted: Bones without names, photographs framed in reeds"), Teng seems to know your own soul better than you do--the exquisitely beautiful "Recessional," which inspires the album title, may make you rethink your whole life. The album's most uplifting and hopeful cut: "City Hall," inspired by San Francisco's decision in 2004 to recognize gay marriage. ("Ten years waiting for this moment of fate / When we say the words and sign our names / If they take it away someday / This beautiful thing won't change.") Count Dreaming Through the Noise among the "can't miss" records of 2006. --Alanna Nash
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