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Madeleine Peyroux
Half the Perfect World
(Rounder)
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2006, Volume 13, #9
Written by John Metzger
In helping Madeleine Peyroux sculpt her fourth outing Half the Perfect
World, Larry Klein did precisely what any good producer ought to do: he got
out of the way, thereby allowing her positively mesmerizing voice to do all of
the heavy lifting. Much like on her previous effort Careless Love, the
arrangements are delicate and light, and they are utilized primarily to frame
the warm, earthy glow of her melancholy musings. With her relaxed, easy-going
manner, Peyroux frequently recalls Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith, and, not
surprisingly, she fares best whenever the music that surrounds her is rooted
deeply in the distant past. She magnifies the fragile danger that lurks with
Leonard Cohen and Anjani Thomas’ Blue Alert; she settles comfortably into
the ethereal yearning of Johnny Mercer’s The Summer Wind; and she makes
her old-time charm fit naturally within the sweetly soulful structure of A
Little Bit. Elsewhere, I’m All Right, which she co-wrote with Steely
Dan’s Walter Becker, strikes a breezy, playful gait that belies the loneliness
that emanates from its core, while she barely masks her sorrow on a cover of
Charlie Chaplin’s Smile. Although Peyroux isn’t always successful in her
bid to incorporate more contemporary material into her repertoire — a cover of
Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’ is ineffectively airy, and a rendition of
Joni Mitchell’s River, which she performs as a duet with k.d. lang,
treads so politely that it sounds like The Carpenters — her few missteps aren’t
sufficient to diminish the haunted, intimate beauty that resonates throughout
Half the Perfect World. 
Half the Perfect World is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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