Caught in the Carousel

Issa

Dragon Dreams
Sheeba

Issa

Jane Siberry is Issa. Issa is Jane Siberry. But, most importantly, Jane Siberry is back, though in the form of Issa, and Dragon Dreams is the new CD. In her previous incarnation as Jane Siberry, Issa released some of the finest albums of the last twenty some odd years. For many, her masterpiece is the Brian Eno-co-produced When I Was A Boy, in 1993 that featured her duet with k.d. lang "Calling All Angels." In fact, that album is more of a masterpiece for two reasons, one being the wonderful lyric: "Give us fire and give us flow to always love like this," and, secondly, it allowed her to move to an even more daring direction and produce, two years later, the jazz-tinged album Maria. That album closed with a career-defining masterstroke 20-minute epic, "Oh My My" that says more about the real pain of pulling away from one's youth than almost any novel, movie or album I can think of. And then...

She disappeared.

She formed her own company, Sheeba, and offered stranger and stranger CDs. Child was songs for the Christmas season that had not a single traditional Yuletide song on it. Teenager was a recording of her early musings. There were several other titles. But each time one had the distinct feeling that Jane had surrounded herself with friends and collaborators who never held her accountable. Her music became, one hates to say, irrelevant. Indulgent. You could no longer see the force that influenced Bjork, Radiohead, and so many others. You could no longer sense a real rival to Kate Bush. But this critic remained on her email distribution list. He worried about the announced name-change and about the new CD, because would he, for the first time, not buy? He had bought all she previously offered because he collects things and because he owed her this much at least. But the thing is, he never listened to the music after a cursory sample. They were albums of lost hymnals or lullabies, etc. But what was promised was Dragon Dreams. What was promised was all new material.

The first moment of concern upon holding the CD is the note that "this is the first of a story told in three parts." Almost never a good sign. Except...except that Siberry has always been so inventive, so full of innocent wonderment that you give her a larger allowance. And what a payoff! (Mid-December is too late for entry into album-of-the-year lists, but watch for it on next year's list, because I can't foresee a finer work or art coming my way anytime soon.)

Dragon Dreams actually feels like a final note on the career of Siberry as opposed to a first note on the career of Issa. Her voice is still that of a thrush holding the power to surprise you out of every comfortable moment. Each of the song seems to echo back to a previous Siberry album. "Send Me Someone to Love" could have been from her first eponymous album from 1982. "You Had a Good Thing" is vintage 1984's No Borders Here. "I Pick Up the Phone," could be part of 1985's The Speckless Sky. "When We Are Queen" is classic 1988's The Walking. "Grace" is a sister to any song from 1989's Bound By the Beauty.

And then there is this album's brilliant "Oui Allo?" which revisits what Siberry first explored throughout 1995's Maria: namely the idea that a brief succession of jazz-tinged strokes on a piano can break the human heart. The song, as all the others on this landmark album, manages to convey whimsy and destruction in the same breath. Throughout the song Issa answers phone calls and considers offers sent her way. That moment when the offers seems less than sincere and Issa whispers: "I, uh. Oh. I get it. You want something from me" is totally devastating. It reminds us of the power of a single genius musician, writer, singer. It reminds us that we are never that far away from our dreams, our fairy tales, our disappointments.

Issa is real. Issa is here. Issa simply is, and we are lucky to have her back for her debut.

—Thomas Cooney