The Sweet Keeper

Husky
Back we go to the dark and melancholy world that is the Planet Tikaram.

TANITA TIKARAM
The Sweet Keeper
EAST WEST WX330 LP/Cass/CD

Tanita Tikaram is blessed. She has a voice which, on the evidence so far, is incapable of sounding unattractive; strong, low and husky, hinting at dark reserves of melancholy no matter how upbeat a song may be, it carries a moody weight into every line (more often than not setting aside any sceptical enquiries of a "Yes, but what's she on about?" nature). Twenty-odd tracks into her recording career, though, it seems that (like her hero Leonard Cohen) she may find what she is seeking by working within very narrow limits of music and overt emotion.

For instance, We Almost Got It Together, the advance single from The Sweet Keeper, like her very first release, Good Tradition, is full of an almost jolly hockeysticks cheeriness, bouncing along on fat sax and keyboard riffs. Yet there's something uncomfortable and clumsy about it - such bonhomie isn't really her style. It was the deadpan dark voice, the mysterious imagination behind Twist In My Sobriety that made you want to know what she was doing next - and Little Sister Leaving Town proves it was no fluke. Perhaps about a girl trying to establish her identity, it moves slowly and quietly, tense with mixed-up feelings. Languor or sheer fatigue, celebration or lament, you never know exactly where you are, but her sombre, tough singing grips you even if you've lost the plot.

The same gentle power is there again in the flirty opening of Love Story (Tikaram in conversation with John Giblin's fretless bass), the early verses of Harm In Your Hands (dead slow, the considered delicacy of Mark Isham's muted trumpet approaching Miles Davis quality), and the perfectly pretty It All Came Back Today (Tikaram folksily simple, plus a little Irish lacework from Helen O'Hara's violin and Davey Spillane's flute). That's a decent score of highspots, but not quite enough to match Ancient Heart.

The Sweet Keeper retains most of the first album team, in particular co-producers Peter Van Hooke and Rod Argent. Except when the word's gone out that a little jauntiness is called for, the arrangements and performances are remarkably sensitive, not least Argent's own sparse piano phrasing on Little Sister Leaving Town and Harm In Your Hands. But despite original touches like the virtually ambient use of bottleneck guitar on a couple of tracks, there's an impression that familiarity has led to excessive ease. The bottom line is, much as The Sweet Keeper confirms Tikaram's status, lay the songs end to end and they just don't reach so far into the memory this time. ***

Picture caption: Tanita Tikaram: adieu, jolly hockeysticks.