Album Reviews

Clearaudio couldn't have gone into the record business to provide software support for its line of turntables. There’s no shortage of new vinyl in 2006. Perhaps the album’s producer is a friend.

Whatever the motivation, the company decided to produce a few records recently, including this one, from a trio calling itself B_ella. Sabine Bickel sings and plays acoustic guitar, Martin Schütz the “other guitars,” and Roland Havranek, double bass.

Instrumental proficiency and emotional expressiveness are independent of one another. There are successful and popular musicians with great communicative powers and minimal skills as there are ones with little to give emotionally but who can play with great speed and dexterity.

The members of B_ella play their instruments proficiently but not particularly expressively, and Mrs. Bickel can sing, but she seems incapable of emoting. The feeling is like watching actors who have not created inner lives for the characters they are playing. It is what separates amateurs from professionals and B_ella, comes across an an earnest but drab and clearly amateur outfit.

The only emotion I felt listening was depression and I don’t write that to be mean. This music was down. Not solemn, not soothing, but just meek, unsteady and down.

B_ella bears a superficial resemblance to Cowboy Junkies, but there’s a fundamental difference and if you know Cowboy Junkies and get to hear this, you’ll understand what I’m saying.

The recording is the audiophile cliché of distant microphones in a reverberant space (very reminiscent of the equally sad Lorna Hunt album issued by Classic’s Rock The House label), though for what it is, it’s a very pure sound that can work in the right circumstance. Add that distance to the emotional hollow and it makes for a very dreary listen.

Still, I admire Clearaudio for trying something new but what Joe Harley did for Audioquest, this is not.