Album Name: Tangos and Tantrums
Artist: Sylvie Lewis
Year/Label: 2005 / Independent
Review by Anna Maria Stjärnell
Sylvie Lewis is a singer who combines the smooth jazz of Norah Jones with the cabaret of Jill Tracy and a relationship insight to rival Aimee Mann. Her debut is an accomplished and witty collection of songs.
“All His Exes” is especially droll as the protagonist imagines the former girlfriends of her lover crowding their affair. It’s catchy and irresistibly fun too, but with a strong undercurrent of anger. The wistful musings of “The Movies” is set to an arrangement that seems to have strayed from the fifties. Lewis seems to have stepped out a different era than ours, one of infinitely more sophistication. More dreaminess in “Promises of Paris” where Lewis steps into the area of French chanson.
“New York” paints the town in hues of nostalgia as she remembers an ex.
The amusing “My Rival” sees the 17-year old protagonist going up against a worldly woman in her thirties. Her steely determination is apparent.
If this record has a flaw it’s that it has too end. But so do all good things.
Sylvie Lewis is a real talent and this is a record to check out.
Posted on February 23, 2005
Track Listing
1. by heart
2. all his exes
3. Rockwell’s blues
4. the movies
5. promises of Paris
6. if love songs
7. when i drink
8. New York
9. conversation piece
10. Valentine’s day
11. my rival
12. old friends
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