"The Envelope, Please" by Swifty Lazarus: Spoken Word Noir at its best

The major flaw in most spoken word albums (excluding the Masters-- Kerouac, Pound, etc.) is a lack of definite TONE. Modern poets tend to read their poems as if they were reading weather reports. What distinguishes Todd Swift (co-avatar of Swifty Lazarus with Tom Walsh) is a TONE which borders on (and often breaks into) the musical. Pound once remarked that when poetry ceases to be musical, it ceases to be poetry, and Swift has certainly taken this home truth to heart. He has the miraculous ability to ORATE without seeming pretentious, NARRATE without seeming condescending, and VERSIFY without sentimentality. That having been said, the TONE of "Envelope" is far from comfortable or comforting. This is SPOKEN WORD NOIR, owing in large part to Tom Walsh's tasteful (one might say tastefully sinister) use of all manners of musical collage-material: hip-hoppy beats, psycho-dissonant jazz, samples of Dylan records, loungey pieces, etc. The final picture is of a jagged, blackened, post-modern landscape, littered with shards of pop-culture artifacts, movie fantasies, news reports, and frail human lives wasted in motion.

For my money, "History is Dead/Read my Lips" is the masterpiece of the bunch. Over a musical score part Tom Waits, part Tom Lehrer, Swift spits out bits of psycho-babble and God-is-dead art-speak. We are, he says, "in the rapid fire line of information", at the end of ideological struggle where complicity in media meshigas has become commonplace. Also notable is "Robot Lamprey", which morphs in the space of two minutes from jazz to synth-drone to "Buckets of Rain". "Honk your horn in you're paranoid" is an amusingly twisted recollection (among other things) of "chocolate covered locusts", while "Flight Delayed" recalls the Radiohead of "OK Computer". The album closes out with the American Beauty style narrative of "Suburbia Mythologica", and the apocalyptic horror-movie creepiness of "Post-Requiem".

In short, this is as worthy a spoken word venture as you're likely to hear, NOIR and all. I'll upload details as to where it can be purchased soon...


This page links to bio info, and is from the company that released it

http://wiredonwords.com/SwiftyLazarus.html

*

They can order it this way, online:

http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=WOWCD05

or

Releases currently in stock from Wired on Words. They are available by
clicking the "Catalog" button on the Cheap Thrills website
(www.cheapthrills.ca), and then typing the name of the CD or cassette
you
want
In the US and elsewhere in the world you can order Wired on Words
releases
on the internet through the Cheap Thrills website at
www.cheapthrills.ca



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