MISRA

Bio

For those of you who haven't heard the news, Tempting is a record of 12 songs written by the fabulous Franklin Bruno and recorded by the world's best musicians and me.

Those of you who have followed Franklin's work may recognize reframed standards such as "Inarticulate Boyfriend" from his heralded Etudes for Voice and Snackmaster Shrimper cassette, or the country-styled "Cheat" from his Simple Machines album A Bedroom Community. You may wonder why we aimed so high.

It was a daunting task, but I'm placing a fiver on the tree stump that when you've got the CD under the laser you'll swoon to the Calexico-fried forms these songs took once we got Joey Burns and John Convertino in the room, after seventy dollars worth of shrimp tacos from Pico de Gallo. Mr. Convertino in particular is all over the record, supplying the classic backbeat to my one-woman Supremes on "Every Little Bit Hurts," and digging out the perfect percussion instrument for our forays into calypso and bossa nova territory.

Since I've written none of the songs I can unabashedly praise this record as an unparalleled musical event. I'm not kidding: Tempting has something for everyone.

The understated, "five notes is all you need just so long as you know which five and when" heartbreak of trumpeter Kevin Cordt on "Pointless Triangle" is the rare moment when a musician can show Chet Baker how to sound sad. I mean, really, won't your thrice-divorced Uncle Jimmy love that one?

What about Kevin's authentically styled swing arrangement (with a handful of multi-tracked Arizona horn players filling in for a big band) of "Let's Stay In," which asks the musical question, "What if Nick and Nora Charles (of The Thin Man fame) took a few hours off from painting the town?"

If this duet with Joey Burns doesn't touch the hearts of all recovering alcoholics/Turner Classic Movies addicts, well, we'll just sell the horn charts to Harry Connick Jr.

And for those with 8 of 10 toes poised to plummet off the roof, there's "Only A Monster," our piano-and-cello elegy, with a hook that'll have Kelly Osborne driving her dad onto the crazy train. Really, how can any self-respecting goth gal not sing along with lines like "You're only human and that's even worse?"

Besides the aforementioned Calexicans and friends, all your trading-card favorite musicians from Antidote (my 2001 solo CD) are here in newer, "specialer" roles. Buy stock in a castanet manufacturer now: There's sure to be a run on the instrument after the world hears Amy Domingues’s blaze of flamenco glory on "Your Inarticulate Boyfriend." And when Amy forgot her cello wasn't a bass early in the sessions, she plucked "Just Because It's Dying" until her index finger was a full half-centimeter shorter.

Jean Cook partisans will lock themselves into fluorescent-lit rooms for the weekend, the better to transcribe her arrangement of "Masonic Eye," on which our violinist takes the euphoria of massed disco strings straight into the chair of a sadistic dentist. I dare you to listen to this song without glancing repeatedly over your shoulder for a glimpse of one of the Masonic Brotherhood's many minions, or at least Norman Bates.

As for Franklin, well, we convinced him to leave the distortion pedal at home and tickle the keys, the vibes, the occasional guitar...and the tiny, detuned banjo that was laying around our engineer Craig Schumacher's Wavelab hit factory. Franklin listened to my tales of woe, pulled some songs that fit the situation from his extra-large piano bench, and wrote a passel of new ones just for me to sing, as if I were Judy Garland to his Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, or Elaine Stritch to his Stephen Sondheim, or Dionne to his Burt and Hal, or...you get the point.

After all this, I'm too exhausted to describe our title track...but it's tempting.

Discography

Tempting (2002)
CD - $12.00

Antidote (2001)
2xCD - $14.00