Album Review from www.getzmo.com
March 30, 2007Shock! This must be one of the most well-produced cd's I've ever listened too. The `50s feel in this album is so sweet that it really feels the way it sounds. Skarlet outdid her self together with a solid menagerie of musicians to add that fairy dust this album that is so drenched in.
It's a great select! While drinking, cleaning the house, dinning, dancing and more! Plus your mama and your papa won't knock at your door and have you turn it down! Skarlets voice couldn't sound any better! To me she just kicked every local female musician to date! It's everything an album should be… the musician here just brought us back to school!
Her voice is sexy, strong and has one of the best characteristics that make her so tangibly sweet! It feels like she's whispering in your ear. Plus great inlays makes it worthwhile buying… legally!!
1. SKARLET - Ballroom, gangsters, Betty Boops, powder rooms, vintage showgirls, Las Vegas, Chicago feel! Put on your fancy pants and dancing shoe's take your girl for a ride in your daddy's Cadillac and paint the town red!!! Urban Philippines wont be the same with this in your CD player!
2. Call me - this remake still has that 50's feel to it but sounds more like a 70's jazz to me…. You can't go wrong with a great song and a singer this good behind the wheel.
3. One way ticket to the blues - very simple, elegant and is very "stage-lounge" sound. I love its simplicity and is lyrically brilliant… melancholy never sounded so fun!
4. Lullaby for Ganie - I don't know if people get this or if it is intentional… but the way she sang this song reminded me so much Basia. Again very simple with the strip down tonal guitar playing and vocals. Vivid is the best way to describe her lyrics.
5. Anguish - Sweet ambience the drums sounded so real it feels like they are playing in front of you. The passing fill-in of the guitars and piano gave that free style feel that jazz was always so noted for. Strong lyrics great start to end.
6. Babae Ka - Hello `70s! Square cars driving in `70s Roxas Boulevard. I never really liked girl power themed song but its an exemption in this case its okay. It even has that theater sound! The brass is so `70s old movie sounding it just makes it such a treat to listen to!!
7. Myawong - dark but hopeful. This will sound great with a matched music video! Its sounds to personal, for me to understand with just browsing. The play here is vocal and lyric intensity is complimented with minimal instrumentals!
8. Stay with me - Sexy beats, and play… it just blows that the inlay didn't show its lyrics… also the beep bop was an absolute treat!!! Karl Roy would have a run for his money for this one.
9. Birdy Bop - Run Karl! Run!
10. Goodbye Ruby Jean - this sound more like "Hotel Chicago blues" rather than Jazz. Perfectly rolled lyrics. Painful song! And that's just a blues addicts candy.
11. The way that you do - Dance Rock n Roll… but still holds on to that crossover sound. But nevertheless still "jazz heavy" as not to be criticized as "pogi-jazz", as I heard from my college professor who played jazz heavy, and described crossover as pogi jazz.
12. I'm in love with a dream - Again that Basia feel! Her approach to her singing is smooth, sexy and intense! Again it blows that they didn't print its lyrics.
13. Joy - it has its great moments also it has plateaus more than the other song in the album. But what do you expect from a song called joy! The best part in this song is the catchy instrumentals!! Great stanzas! The chorus just didn't hit me as the catchy stanzas.
14. Words Behind The tears - smooth…
Okay, all I can say is that this type of production should be the benchmark for artists and producers! The Philippines is so abundant with talent and I've never seen or heard of an album this well produced…Eraserheads albums would be second, the P.O.T. album would be third in my list and fourth would have to be Brain Salad. When I say well produced, I mean everything from the inlay, to the quality of the recording, the songs etc… I hate it when a good song is stuck in a seemingly low grade CD… it makes the songs sound muffled and ugly.
The way this album is built from its artistic value to the physical value is the best so far…. Too girly for my taste in term of the inlay choice of colors… but it's the best for me nevertheless.
True music lovers and educated musicians will like this album easily! Naturally, posers won't get this by a mile! They can still pretend though!
Enjoy the album and buy it legally…. It's worth it!
by John Lee of www.getzmo.com
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Album Review from PhilMusic.com
Colorful, poised and dazzlingly theatrical – Skarlet’s debut solo record, The Powder Room Stories mints into strong Montmarte cabaret-biographical sketches, a courtesan diva’s tale of desperate love, and lustily musical interpretations either Broadway guru Baz Luhrman or jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker wouldn’t mind listening to shortly and have a cup of tea. Whether it’s the silken vocal flexes that borders from strong, powerful and mesmerizing or the distinguished diva presence, Skarlet’s voice is the defiant element that makes The Powder Room Stories simply a clear-cut Broadway jazz opera donned in spunky rock chic.
A cross between Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone, Skarlet’s vocal style has precise sense of rhythm and has a chameleon-coat towards slow and fast tempos, scat singing, standard ballads and falsettos. In “Birdy bop” she hops, leaps and frantically plays on random notes and improvised syllables like cold ice melting on suave, summer heat; while on “Anguish,” the gentle cover of “One way ticket to the blues,” and the dreamy temperament of “Stay with me,” Skarlet sings like Billie Holiday in 30’s nightclub suit gracefully weeping soul, black n’ white drama and romantic sincerity.
She absolutely knows how to tone down, embellish or establish vocal theatrics within certain limits that doesn’t overlap the genius of the horn and rhythm section, and yet it sounded as if her vocal presence is the heart and soul of the entire song. Thus, Skarlet proves that she is more than just an overnight fixation, but an epitome of real class and feminine power.
In The Powder Room Stories, Skarlet is also at her best subdued to swingy jazz anthems and bouncy numbers particularly the opener track “Skarlet,” a name with spangled equivalent to Broadway chanteuses Satine and Roxie. The title track flirts over blaring trumpets and sax, lively and piercing drums and subtle piano with Skarlet’s voice just as plain and acrobatic on conviction. The fact that she has mastered unlikely similar terrain with her ska endeavors Put3ska and Brownbeat All Stars makes it easy for Skarlet to tap vocally on the upbeat, the danceable and the melodically vigorous.
Fashionably controlled and flexed, Skarlet’s vocal designs are also worth mentioning in the swingy yet steadily soulful tracks like the Edgar Avenir arranged “The Way that you do” and the sheer “Joy,” which she lets loose and strangely avoids the signatured meticulous crooning. The result — a sizzling vivid, completely honest performance that showcases her chops for topform versatility.
The only tagalog track on the album, “Babae ka” pimps on latin tropicalia rhythms, gentle samba beats, stripped down guitars and subtle orchestral arrangement that elegantly rolls like a ball of yarn. It’s one of the fine moments of the album, not because of its marginal beauty and unsophisticated appeal but for the reason that its sincerely written and interpreted in the course of a dignified woman aiming for equality and change. Skarlet’s raw but carefree emotion also stirs to the song’s conviction; her treatment goes beyond just the powerful showcase, but real deal sincerity of what it is to be society’s dictate of a woman – often delineated, oppressed and subjected as sex objects.
Even on the last track, “Words behind the tears” unarguably in her most depressing tone, Skarlet achingly ponders as if she rolls cocaine and intensely yet clearly sings out of a realization of her desperate love. It’s deeply affecting how Skarlet interpret the closing track with such evident pain that you are left wondering why her final narrative in The Powder Room Stories has to be miserable and depressing. Maybe, just maybe – hurt is the price for love. And it defines The Powder Room Stories, as a tragic opera of big band sounds and Skarlet’s search for her fictional portrait as a woman in love.
by Ian Emmanuel C. Urrutia (March 1, 2007)
The Color of Jazz is Skarlet
March 1, 2007
“Colorful, poised and dazzlingly theatrical – Skarlet’s debut solo record, The Powder Room Stories mints into strong Montmarte cabaret-biographical sketches, a courtesan diva’s tale of desperate love, and lustily musical interpretations either Broadway guru Baz Luhrman or jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker wouldn’t mind listening to shortly and have a cup of tea.”
PhilMusic.com
“The CD release marks Skarlet’s re-emergence as the new Philippines’s Jazz Princess.”
Pop Times Magazine
“She’s mannered in an Eartha Kitt way doing Ella Fitzgerald style standards – all in an Asian Bettie Page package.”
Inquirer
