Orphans

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Product Description 3CD Box .co.uk With these astounding 54 songs, Tom Waits has added a vital new work to his catalog. The title, Orphans, refers to the songs either being from a range of outside projects, various impulses, and whims, or simply not having found a place on the albums for which they were intended. While that scenario has constituted a stopgap measure for lesser artists, this set stands alongside Waits's finest work. He has shaped it into three separate discs, each one separately titled after the prevailing character of its tracks and playing with its own mood and dramatic arc. Brawlers favors raucousness and uptempo grinds and grooves, while Bawlers showcases balladry and the more overtly poetic. Bastards is a funhouse of angular characters, spiky anecdotes, shaggy dogs, and even a Kurt Weill cover. The set offers everything from the amped-up rockabilly hiccuping of "Lie to Me" to the breathtaking perfection of "Shiny Things," and from the outraged political reporting of "Road to Peace" to the closing-time lament of "Little Man." --David Greenberger P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); Review Pictured on the sleeve in daguerreotype sepia surrounded by the ghosts of America's alternative cultural history, Waits has now firmly sealed his place as one of the USA's major storytellers. Orphans, containing rarities, reworkings and new material, beautifully demonstrates how he uses just about every native musical form of expression to achieve this high standing. These aren't offcuts, but prime Tom.This box set is handily split into three themed parts: Brawlers being composed of mutant rockabilly jive suffused with the spirit of the Mississippi delta, Gene Vincent and all points in between; Bawlers is the softer side of Tom's muse, containing ballads and laments; meanwhile Bastards is the most intriguing set, filled with Brechtian cabaret, strange tales, jokes and the most disturbing version of 'Heigh Ho' (from Hal Willner's Disney project, Stay Awake) that you'll ever hear. Shot through with the grime of gutter life and the fairy dust of magical, violent realism, Waits and wife Kathleen Brennan's 'strange couplings' (as he puts it) seem sometimes madly anachronistic yet utterly relevant. This set even contains what could be termed as Tom's first 'protest song' in 'The Road To Peace'. So, something for every type of Tom Waits fan and easily up there with his best work. Essential. --Chris Jones Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off in a new window See more