Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos

Twenty-four hours ago I put this new-to-me CD on the changer, and it hasn't come off: a full 56 minutes, 54 seconds of musical Rolfing from the child prodigy love child of Laura Nyro and Tim Buckley, Joni Mitchell and Henry Rollins or Melissa Manchester and Elton John. Take your pick.

After my first listen all the way through, my initial thought, (after the less than literate "Wow! Yikes! Zowie!), was where have I been for the last 9 or 10 years...living under a rock or something? This 1992 debut, (er, well, second release, but this really seems like the starting point for this incarnation of Tori Amos), Little Earthquakes, might be the most difficult album I've yet to review.

It's playing now, that spare girl with a piano style that millions of not-just-female fans, Ears With Feet, have embraced as a personal anthem: a wrenching, courageous, exhaustive and exhilarating cycle of self-loathing, blurred boundaries, father love, school years angst, involuted submission, laughing in the face of death zeal, boundaries of breakup distance, coy sexuality, stark violation, throat-closing loss, edgy mother-daughter themes, (try: the other breadcrumbs lost under the snow, for a gingerbread cottage horror show of a sound bite), and ultimate closure.

Although this is my first Tori experience, you know it won't be my last. After sitting stunned through 3 full cycles of intimate Amos, I raced over to Half.com and ordered Under The Pink, From The Choirgirl Hotel CDs, Crucify EP, (I really want that ode to Kurt Cobain cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit!) plus Tori Amos Complete Videos 1991-1998. I am taking the sage advice of more seasoned Toriphiles like new cyber pal katmar, and long time bud Arazim, and waiting on Amos' uber breakup album, the less accessible, (for newbies, at any rate), more difficult Boys For Pele.

Yes, this fragile North Carolina born waif, packs more feeling into one CD than the fist-to-the-solar-plexus punch of the brave book-into-movie that is Girl, Interrupted. Judicious use of guitar, bass, drums and lovely strings, help create the mood of a moment. Even the white noise space of a held beat, a chord not heard helps set the tone of each word poem that functions as brain salad surgery.

Take Precious Things. There's a deceptive Exorcist piano intro, with some type of percussive hyperventilating/breathing to represent running away from school's cruelty, the blind push for conformity. Amos employees a childish tone, as she takes the part of Billy, a young crush who thought she was an ugly girl but fun to play with. A single strident guitar blast heralds her barely submerged ire at the pretty boys...the ones who rejected her.

Trivia floods in here, (after spending a couple hours sifting through the 400 or so entries on the Rolling Stone website). Amos ultimately triumphed: the school's army of geeks having a Revenge Of The Nerds style victory as Tori-of-the-deformed-jaw and off-putting brilliance was elected Homecoming Dance Queen. Today, her out-thrusting full lower lip, on her large, mobile mouth, is considered as luscious as the chocolate-covered cherries in the Cherry Garcia ice cream she loves.

She throws in a broken glass like shard of lyrics toward the pretty girls with their nine inch nails, a sly nod and wink to a reputed amour, Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame). Like e.e. cummings and the Beatles before her, the lyrical cues and autobiographical bon mots have been sifted and gleaned for every possible nuance and meaning.

Crucify is a song with universal themes. Daughter of a Methodist minister, Tori blends a little, or a lot, of religious reference into almost every song. Besides the reference to driving nails through hands, there's plenty of allusion to self-hatred, critical and caustic acids upon the soul.

As a former singer, I'm always interested in use of voice as instrument, and here Amos excels. She takes her normal second soprano up through the highest reaches, then swoops down into her second alto limits. She'll take a pivotal word like "chains" (chains of our own device), and add almost a Chinese operatic trill as she makes it into a 5 syllable word.

A couple of especially lush, majestic ballads provide ear candy and points of reference. In Winter, beautiful imagery of white horses, drifts of deep snow, and walking hand in hand with her father are met by restrained piano and some of the silky strings aforementioned.

Like Girl, the message is one of standing on your own, and making your own way; breaking free of the need to please, to submerge and stifle the soul. The other deceptively soft song is China. It isn't one of my favorites...yet, but I can see where it would have been a major alt rock favorite: a woman remarking that her lover is growing distant, and as hard to reach as the Great Walls of China.

Joycean stream of conscious, (or the sort of synapse skipping association prominent in untreated manic depression), leads her to the observations that you can't really see the cracks in the (tableware) china. It's about as close to Melissa Manchester as this young songtress will get, and you don't need an airplane to get there.

Just when this is getting very heavy and maudlin, Amos will launch into a playful romp such as Happy Phantom. I guess some people will read suicidal messages here, or at least a morbid death wish, but paint my fingernails black and call me Goth, I just don't see it. The jangling piano chords scamper about in this short, and quite likable what if? sort of sally into the more playful world of Faerie.

You might think a track like Leather would point up the kinkier side of the minister's daughter. It's odd, a Cabaret-old-chum sort of number, a strip tease between less than loving physical acts, and the always present, controlling super ego. Pretentious? Not really, as Amos again uses Eleanor Rigby strings against a strong Gershwin-meets-Elton John sort of stride/Broadway piano. Ambivalent, warring emotions are highlighted by the numerous, and expressive vocal wardrobe fashion show Tori gives us here.

Silent After All These Years is certainly one of the strongest tracks on an album full of self-revelation and drama. It's about finding your own authentic voice, and rising about the numbing trap of silence. A trap that many have allowed; given tacit acceptance to through a insidious buy-in of ugliness, stupidity and fault. Sobering and freeing at the same time, I find it to be beautiful, and cathartic as it brings to mind the battered and gas lighted older friend I accompanied to her Doctor's office.

This time she was going to tell the truth; this time the black eye and minor concussion would be acknowledged for what they were. Sadly, her true voice, the one that spoke behind the gaily social one, was only heard through the other end of a wine glass. Touching nerves, that's what Tori does so well, so honestly, so unsparingly.

You can't review this album without touching on the a capella horrors of Me And A Gun. I can imagine this would be absolutely riveting on-stage, and it certainly packs a full compliment of pain, anger and survival, as Tori wonders if her red dress might have brought on the attack, meanwhile musing about Jesus, with whom she used to hang, and the fact that she'd prayed on this very subject matter, and knew she could die or submit.

Her off-hand reference to the sweet and soft biscuits in Carolina, the fact she'd never been to Barbados, and that the Cadillac she was shoved up against and over, wasn't even a Classic model, add, rather than detract from the already undeniable tension of this topic. Having weathered the storm of boys who said yes, when I said no, it's one I can barely listen, too. As Tori would say, how's that for a deep thought?

A couple more breakup/relationship songs complete the cycle. Where Tear In Your Hand doesn't yet set my ear buds a-twitter, I can relate to the gut-wrenching message of farewell, especially when the part of you that he's seeking in her, hasn't yet been explored. The title track is a minor key delight, vaguely mysterious, gliding through seemingly insignificant hurts that as Tori sings, don't take much to tear us into pieces.

I really enjoy the backing chorus, the cyclic rounds, the chorus hook, the abrupt chord changing, stop and start quality that is like a encapsulated version of Tori 101. It also reminds me of Laura Nyro, a late 60's, early 70's chanteuse with an amazing range, yielding a Tin Pan Alley sounding piano, and a pocketful of equally succinct observances.

This music is personal, confessive, Bosendorfer pianoforte with gorgeous melodies, the deceptive sweet vocals and then the depth charges and land mines of pain, guilt, obsessive love and aural angst all add up to a 5 star, stunning creation.

I'm guessing people will have strong feelings about Tori Amos and Little Earthquakes, one way or another. I've heard it said, fans are disappointed that much of her later works are less personal/less autobiographical. What I'm thinking here, is that she's given us a good portion, if not the whole, enchilada here, though breakups and miscarriages will provide visceral fuel for the excellent CDs that follow this exceptional release.

What's not to love in a girl with Clariol? Torch Crimson hair, a Toyota Truck driving, platform shoe wearing, Robert Plant/Kurt Cobain/Trent Reznor/Stones fascinated diva; a hyper-talented Leo on the cusp of earth centering Virgo? But then, I'm only 24 hours into my first ever Tori experience. You tell me. How am I doing so far?

(All earnings from this review will go toward helping defray the expenses, as our dear Epinions Community member Hard_To_Please battles cancer)

Great Music To Play While: Learning To Love Self