Manafonistas

„I want to listen more than I want to be listened to. This is my moment to sing, and I will sing to you all that I have heard. Here are my feelings carved through the images and sounds of trains and rivers, how they speak to one another all night long when we who live near them can hear them clearly. The crow and the mockingbird, hard to tell that mockingbird sounds like the crow, the light through my old windows, my determination, my despair, my love of humans.“ So there she is again, and her words speak volumes. It all starts with a woman throwing bottles from the rooftop. The New Orleans-vibes can easily be revealed. The second and the third song are clearly related to genre & geography. A bit too obvious, was my first thought. But, not much later, a stranger would have seen a smile on my face. She’s playing tricks, leads you on a wrong track. Like Hitchcock in The Birds – we are in a bird’s shop (pet store, however you call them), and everything’s cozy and comforting. Pure deception. From song no. 4 onwards things start getting more and more creepy. One by one the ghosts appear. The lyrics are written in a conversational mode (Karl Hyde should like them), but the words are performed with a thrilling voice between shadowy whispering, falling apart, speaking mode, and unbearably beautiful moments. Merry-go-round-magic. It doesn’t take long, and you are trapped, and you’ll love being trapped that way. You don’t have to go nostalgic, or remember the first time you had heared this voice deep in the last century. With fuckin‘ Chuck E’s being in love. This is not from the „Classic Rock Department“, this is not for the shopping mall. This is the other side of desire. No doubts about it, it’s a very oblique voice, as strange as Robert Wyatt’s one. Voices that can hit rock bottom within seconds. Lessons in fragility and strength. Rickie Lee Jones has made one of the best albums of her life. Just stay a little bit longer. We’re sitting in Cafe Heaven in Provincetown. We’re talking about everyday life and favourite records. No interview. We’re talking about the sounds of roaring locomotives in our childhood. How they appeared in the distance with a howl.