Ute Lemper - But One Day...(2002)

"The singer, not the song"--it's an adage as old as cabaret itself, yet one that seems to have generated as much stifling cliche as liberating music. German chanteuse Ute Lemper has forged a career that's willfully confounded the first at the same time it's gratifyingly taken the latter mission to heart. While this release turns from Punishing Kiss’s more contemporary Tom Waits/Elvis Costello/Nick Cave flirtations to the traditions of Lemper's beloved Weill/Brel/Piazolla repertoire, it also folds four of her own original compositions into the mix for the first time, songs that underscore her forceful voice and muse with ambitious grace. The melodic sophistication of "Lena" (the tale of her manager's Holocaust survivor mother, with guest Laurie Anderson providing subtle colorations) is the most artfully determined of the quartet, a song that seems more akin to the intensely personal prog/alterna universe of Bush and Amos than it does a smokey Berlin club. That sense of illumination is the key throughout this masterful, beautiful portfolio. Lemper's takes on Weill's "September Song" and "Speak Low" sparkle gently, while her covers of Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and Piazolla's "Buenos Aires" and "Oblivion" positively glow with determination. At once musically expansive and thematically personal, Lemper boldly challenges any number of hoary genre assumptions with what's arguably her most accomplished and satisfying album. --Jerry McCulley