Rufus Wainwright’s previous studio album, 2007’s Release The Stars, verged on the gaudy, with a whole cavalcade of musicians helping puff up its sense of extravagance. That album was written when Wainwright’s mother, Kate McGarrigle, was first diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually claim her life. Perhaps he wanted to lose himself in all those swirling layers. Still, no matter how dazzling the resulting music, something vital was amiss. After all, it’s what lies beneath that fascinates about Rufus Wainwright.
In simple mourning dress of piano and voice, these songs pierce to the marrow. At its most effervescent the music recalls Gershwin, but, more often, it has something of Debussy’s exquisite sorrow. ‘So Sad With What I Have’ is one such profoundly melancholic number, the piano notes falling like so many tears, the voice hesitant, but rich, like slow-pouring treacle. ‘Martha’ meanwhile allows us to simultaneously eavesdrop on family conversation and ponder our fleeting lives and fragile relationships, before the tempo is upped for ‘Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now’, its billowing melody almost cabaret.
Often Wainwright documents how destructive our desires can be. ‘Sonnet 20’, or ‘A Woman’s Face’ – one of three Shakespearean sonnets he sets to music – tenderly details passion’s all-consuming ways. However, it is the final, sad-eyed ‘Zebulon’ – steeped in yearning for what has been lost – to which your soul will, unquestionably, succumb.