Marianne Faithfull
A Secret Life

THE REVIEW

Marianne Faithfull is a rock muse.

She is part of the history that has accompanied us to this day, having been a groupie and muse for the Stones, fled with them to France, and was a delicate jazzy vocalist towards the end of the seventies. But it was in the midst of the crazy nineties that she produced her masterpiece with the essential production of Angelo Badalamenti (creator, among other things, of the paranormal music for Twin Peaks): "A Secret Life".

An ambitious album (it begins with a citation from the first cantica of Dante's Comedy and concludes with some verses from Shakespeare) and with a rather gloomy atmosphere, alleviated by the airy orchestrations of the Italian composer. After the Dantean memory prologue, "Sleep" starts in which our heroine's voice duets at extremely high peaks of pathos with the synths, followed by the wonderful "Love in the Afternoon" entirely supported by a phantasmagoric pulsating bass and rich with emotional climaxes. The main references for this work seem to be dream-pop, particularly certain metaphysical depths dear to Dead Can Dance but stripped of their ethnic dimension, and a bit of post-rock-like sound expansions.

Despite the abundant use of classical instruments, Badalamenti's mastery always avoids making everything fall into prolixity. Indeed, it is perhaps the two more rock pieces, Bored by Dreams and The Wedding, that are the least convincing. The undisputed peak of this work is Flaming September, sinuous, dark, and sexy just like Faithfull's voice.

Thirty minutes and a little more for an album that is a masterpiece of wisdom and sensuality, absolutely worth rediscovering.