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Price £4.97
1 Dec 2004
Release Dates
27 March 2000
VVR1009872 (UK)
24 April 2001
Instinct Records INS557-2 (US)
Producers
Kirsty MacColl, Pete Glenister, Dave Ruffy except (5,12) mixed by Pete
Glenister. 14 & 15 produced by Kirsty MacColl, 16 produced by Kirsty
MacColl, James Knight
Design
Stylorouge
Illustration
James Marsh
Photography
Rocky Schenck
Ratings
by freeworld
In
January 1999, Kirsty appeared on GLR's Planet Mambo show to air two works
in progress - Mambo de la
Luna and In these shoes? - featureing
slinky Latin rhythms, in tune with the programme. By June, she had recorded
more tracks with Glenister and Ruffy in a large shed in Bermondsey, mixed
in July. 
What
you get are Kirstysongs over a happy melange of rhythms, considerably more
upbeat lyrically than Titanic
Days in
keeping with her newly happy state of mind. Kirsty flew to Los Angeles
for promo photos with Rocky Shenck, who took Galore's
cover shots, and to Havana to make the video
for Mambo. In
November MOJO magazine included the album in its news pages - "Kirsty's
been spending a lot of time in Latin America, playing Cuban Solidarity benefits
and so on. It
shows in this rumba-heavy set. The scintillating songstress of word
and tune is back after four years with rhythms rumba, mamba, bossa nova and
salsa in time to catch the end of the UK's Latin Summer." - well,
the following spring anyway. North America had to wait another full year
for its release.
Tropical
Brainstorm is thouroughly
excellent. Reaching back to the carefree feel of My
Affair Kirsty
produced an English Latin album, with sampled Cuban and Brazilian rhythms
and horn lines up front, but also with echoes of
jazz standards, 60s pop and even trip hop. The openers Mambo and In
these shoes? simply swing. There is no weak song on the whole
disc, the
instrumentation is bold and brassy throughout. 
Treachery and
Here comes that man again come as a pair and
are performed with swagger. Autumngirlsoup is
delicate and clever, if perhaps in danger of overdoing things. Celestine,
written during a trip to Bahia last year, is a complete joy. Uplifting,
great melody and lyrics.
Never on a Kirsty album has any roguish man been toasted quite as exquisitely
as in England 2, Colombia 0 which struts along
brilliantly - a real favourites with the ladies this one. Não
esperando is lovely and leads into a feast of tumbling rhythms which
flows through Alegria into the mighty Us
Amazonians,
another favourite. This is the song which Kirsty is using to open her
live shows and it kicks off any evening in grand style. It's witty,
lively and exciting. The last thing you want is for the wheels to come
off the wagon but it all falls apart into Wrong again. Luckily
it's yet another of those standout tracks. It might be a reflection
of bad times for its author but it's a captivating song. The bubbling
instrumentation which supports Designer life transforms
a fairly average lyric into an excellent track, though it is in turn eclipsed
by the closing song Head which floats gently
into the night in all round compelling fashion. Sensational stuff, and absolutely
the highlight of her entire career.
Reviews: "The Latino music enlivens, rather than overpowers. A rare treat." Q
Musicians: Pete Glenister, Dave Ruffy, Kirsty MacColl, Luiz de Almeida, Chucho Merchán, James Knight, Bosco de Oliveira, Roy Dodds, Mark Hinton Stewart, Ernesto Estruch, Lee Groves, Omar Puente, Gabriel Fonseca, Ben Storey, Joe de Jesús, Felix Gonzalez.
© freeworld 1995 - 2008 [ www.kirstymaccoll.com ]
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