Martina Topley-Bird – Snowman
Here in the new year, there still haven’t been a lot of new releases, so I’m still checking out things that I might not have paid enough attention to in 2010. Martina Topley-Bird is one of my favorite vocalists, both for her work with Tricky in the 1990s and as a solo artist. This LP came out to little fanfare in 2010, and in my move from KCRW to KPFK I haven’t been able to make great contacts overseas. Thankfully I managed to get a copy of this album towards the end of last year and I really wish I’d been able to play it more. MTB basically remixes tracks from her prior solo releases, but not with guest producers remixing the original recordings, instead she offers alternate versions of these tracks with her band. In some cases the subtlety of these new versions surpasses the originals as is the case on “Snowman”.