Search This Blog

Tuesday 21 March 2023

The Debra Haul - Turbulent Indigo

 




2023 Charity Shop Purchases #30 - Joni Mitchell - Turbulent Indigo

After a short break we return to the Debra Haul where we are about a half of the way through the first tranche.
Mrs CC is a big fan of Joni Mitchell and we have a good few of her albums (mostly the early classics) on the shelves. I will always take the opportunity to fill in the gaps and as part of the haul we came away with four Joni CDs. One is live and another is a career retrospective (aka Best Of) and I am in two minds as to whether these two will feature.

Lets start then with one of the two others. Turbulent Indigo is her 15th studio album from 1994 and is on the Reprise label. It is one I had never heard of far less heard. Apparently it takes it's inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh as you can probably see from Joni's self- portrait on the cover.
It seems that the album was critically well received with Rolling Stone calling it her best album since the mid-70s. They may well be right. I am not familiar with anything after 1979's Mingus (her 10th) with the exception of 2000's Both Sides Now (her 17th). The other studio album  also comes from that period.

It appears to have been critically  reasonably well received with All Music giving it 3/5 and writing that  The low-key music and restrained vocals stand in contrast to the lyrics -- over and over, Mitchell's imagery refers to guns and violence. Turbulent Indigo provides a disturbing view of modern life made all the more compelling by its calm presentation.






5 comments:

  1. Pleasant enough but if I heard "How Do You Stop" on the radio and didn't know who it was I would never guess it was Joni. Even her voice sounds different and less distinctive than at her peak.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You and Ernie seem lukewarm about this. I thought it would be a right load of screechy meandering bobbins but I find myself really liking these two tracks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Me too, especially the title track. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  4. "I've got something to tell ya, I've got news for you"
    Good grief, he's playing The Vengaboys now!

    ReplyDelete