Deconstructing Pablo

In the 70s, his verses always lay right beside the diaphragm on the bed stand: Pablo Neruda’s Collected Love Poems were the latest chic among cultivated female students, and some of them later even recognized that the Chilean Nobel Prize laureate of 1971 was hardly more than a pompous cheesemeister. German singer/ diseuse Ute Lemper obviously did not. Her brand-new album with the cheapo title Forever, erm, celebrates the works of Neruda in a quite singular manner one might call Ute-style. Lemper, who also was in charge of production, artistic concept and compositions, is undoubtedly out to transcend the poetry as well as the music. And delivers: Each and every title sounds like an expressionist exercise in speech therapy, an endless progression of blubbering, wailing, seething and Kunstlied whining, the French language opener La nuit dans l’ile additionally being garnished with an unhealthy dose of bandoneon and tango kitsch. Reportedly, Kaas chante Piaf didn’t have the hoped-for effect at Guantánamo. Probably they’ll give it another go with the Fräuleinwunder experience.

Ute Lemper – La nuit dans l’ile