Kirsty MacColl
Tropical Brainstorm

THE REVIEW

When was the first time I listened to this album? I don't remember, it might have been four, maybe even five years ago, and since then how many times have I listened to it again? Many, really many, yet the grip it has on me is always the same. Sometimes I think it might be better to set it aside for a while, to avoid wearing it out too much, to seek some alternatives, but what can replace something so unique? And so every year it's the same story, the days get longer, the trees turn green again, the temperatures rise and I find myself once again fatally trapped in the triangle London-Cienfuegos-Rio de Janeiro. "Tropical Brainstorm" is my island of Ogygia, a place far from the world where I can unplug from everything and everyone, a ritual, a spell.

Ironically, Kirsty MacColl is as far from Calypso as one can be; she was never a hermit, a solitary semi-diva, and it is her innate artistic expansiveness, her ability to look far beyond her geographic and cultural background that brought her to this epilogue, to "Tropical Brainstorm". Six years had passed since the intense and autobiographical "Titanic Days" and Kirsty, presumed out of the scene for good, resurfaces with the same grace and vivacity as the flying fish depicted on the beautiful cover. Certainly, she was never a banal and predictable artist, but who could have imagined such an album despite the clues scattered here and there in her repertoire? In my previous review, talking about "Frolic" by Mrs. Drecker, I highlighted the exquisitely feminine character and the refined atmospheres to savor and assimilate little by little; in this case, the first part still holds true, but as for the second we are practically at the antipodes: "Tropical Brainstorm" is not an aperitif to sip slowly, a modern art sculpture from which to extrapolate meaning at will, "Tropical Brainstorm" is a splash of fresh water, a mural full of shapes and colors in the greyness of a city, an anomaly within another anomaly like Kirsty MacColl's own career. An album matryoshka, therefore, in which an unprecedented trait of this marvelous Englishwoman emerges, who had never before shown herself in such a sexy guise, managing to talk about urges and spicy situations openly, without hiding behind metaphors and allusions, and with an irony, naturalness, and charm that I have never, ever found elsewhere, anywhere else.

The cushioned and teasing "Celestine", though not absolutely the artistic and creative peak of the album, represents a crucial passage because it introduces the figure of this uninhibited and provocative alter ego, "She's just a wild and wicked slut", as Kirsty defines her; for years excluded from recording studios, she finally emerges making "Tropical Brainstorm" the masterpiece that it is. Celestine is the savvy queen of the night of "In These Shoes", the jealous lover of "Treachery", the sensual and exotic dancer of "Mambo De La Luna"; a woman with no false modesty, who understands and indulges men and their needs without judgment as in the wonderful "Here Comes That Man Again" and a strong, free woman, a "wild one" who in that wonderful rhythm of samba hymn to joy that is "Us Amazonians" falls in love with a city boy and drags him into her world; "Come on darling be brave for a while, you don't look afraid when you laugh and you smile, I'll be good, I'll be strong, I'll be just what you need all along".

Not only Celestine, in "Tropical Brainstorm" there's also Kirsty, with her journey that starts from the mists of her London, in the endless search for a summer, with a hypnotic and extremely refined masterpiece of feminine mysticism like "Autumngirlsoup", then we find her dealing with the advances of a liar disdainfully rejected in "England 2 Colombia 0" to then admire her, disillusioned but determined to turn the page, elegantly walking on the beaches of Ipanema in "Nao Esperando"; a brief moment of fragility and melancholy in the acoustic ballad "Wrong Again" is overcome with the usual intelligence and sharp irony in a lovely and enchanting "Designer Life", "There's a brand new car in your driveway and a blonde new girl in your bed, You've everything you ever wished for, happy little bubblehead, and you can't fill it up with promises, you can't fill it up with lies, you can't fill it up with business lunches, oh but you can try". Without taking anything away from the sensual and rarefied "Head", "Tropical Brainstorm" would have been even more beautiful than it already is if to close the dances there had been "Golden Heart", a bitter but intense and wonderful bossa nova, unfortunately published only as a B-Side of "Mambo De La Luna" and subsequently in the posthumous anthology "From Croydon To Cuba", offering a passage of pure poetry like "Venus made me, Eros Betrayed me, instead of love's arrow he used a poisoned dart".

And so Kirsty and Celestine conclude the show, hand in hand, a salute and a bow to the audience, together for the first and unfortunately last time. How many times have these songs kept me company, amused me, moved me, made me reflect? How many times have I lost myself in the melodies of "Here Comes That Man Again", "Us Amazonians" or "Designer Life", on those wonderful lyrics, so frank, free, and true? Many more times than I can remember, just as Ulysses remained a prisoner of the idyll of Ogygia and the sweet embrace of Calypso much longer than he would have wished. After all, this is precisely the power of the places of the heart, perhaps this is exactly the kind of witchcraft Kirsty alludes to when she sings "You needed something to get your teeth into, and in my voodoo kitchen you said, I've got something to show you, it's a recipe handed down from father to son for a thousand years, and it goes with those hot salt tears".