Product Description

The second album by former opera star and singer/songwriter Constance Hauman, whose critically acclaimed recording, Falling Into Now, made The Guardian's list of the 10 Best Albums of 2015. High Tides features eight new songs written by Hauman and two covers, Everlong by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Les Chemins de le'Amour by French composer, Francis Poulenc. From pulsing pop anthems to doleful and uplifting love ballads, High Tides presents two highly-charged worlds; the turbulent internal world of human emotions and the majestic awe-inspiring natural world and cosmos both of which cannily respond to the romantic situations and passionate feelings of the singer. "Constance Hauman risks an entirely new style on her album Falling Into Now... she proves herself to be a musician of the first rank... her voice is clear and flawless, but assumes somber timbres when needed and amazes with spontaneous transformations." (Olivier Fraenzke, The New Listener, Germany)

Review

''SINGER-SONGWRITER CONSTANCE HAUMAN'S latest album isn t operatic. Instead, the classically trained soprano employs her spot-on intonation and clear, enunciated phrases in service of highly produced avant-pop songs like a more colloquial, digitized song cycle. But combining the idioms of art song and Top 40-style songcraft can be tricky, and the results on High Tides are mixed. Hauman is undeniably a strong singer, producing sonorous timbres with an earnest and endearing delivery. Unfortunately, that delivery sometimes undercuts the cool, aloof sensibility of the electro-pop accompaniment. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the opening title track, in which Hauman uses French pronunciation to rhyme image with mirage. In that moment, pomp and pretension invade a sonic space typically devoid of such accoutrements. The result feels forced and anachronistic. Later in the collection, Hauman finds a more natural home for her Francophile affectations with her winning interpretation of Francis Poulenc s Les Chemins de l Amour. The dreamlike instrumental textures provide a new context for the twentieth-century master s alluring melody. Another inspired cover comes from an unlikely source the alternative rock band Foo Fighters. Everlong is arguably the most iconic of the band s songs, and Hauman s vocal-centric take on the late- 90s hit frees Dave Grohl s lyrics from underneath the original s distorted grunge guitars and heavy backbeat. Unobscured by rock instrumentation, the innate beauty of the vocal phrases comes to the forefront, spearheaded by Hauman s almost mournful tone. She also redeems herself with Run Sister, a midtempo, synth-driven song that enables the simple melody to float effortlessly above the dense fray of filtered keyboard sounds before morphing into an urgent dance track. Throughout the record, but especially on Love Burns, the vocals contain dramatic hints of musical theater. This quality gives the music a conversational immediacy that keeps the songs from drifting into digital detachment. Perhaps the biggest knock on the album is that the music often feels stuck in the past. Hauman, along with her co-producer Ross Pederson, frequently make aesthetic decisions that feel derivative of The Eurythmics and Kate Bush in their 1980s heydays. Creating retrospective sounds is no crime, but it can come off like a retread. The instrumental timbres frequently sound heavy and melodramatic. That said, although this art-pop collection s soundscape is dominated by ambient layers of electronic filigree, the steady rhythmic thumps and stutter-step syncopations root the songs in a tactile sensibility. One of the most effective tracks is Painful Strangers, cowritten by Hauman and Pederson. The song oscillates between arhythmic airiness and a sensual slow jam, as Hauman s smooth, azure tone imbues an otherwise bittersweet song about fleeting romantic connection with tranquility.'' --Opera News