Think of Tarnation and images of a vast, wide open desert spring to mind a warm Californian desert at dusk, with the odd, lonely cactus sprung against the red-eyed sky.
The tree is somehow imbued with a deep but mysterious significance; maybe it s where the doomed lovers in Your Thoughts And Mine first consummated their great passion, or maybe it was their special meeting place that is now haunted like Emily Bronte s Yorkshire moors.
The cover of Tarnation s second album, Mirador, could be partly responsible for this flight of fancy a tree seen through a light orange filter but it has as much to do with Paula Frazer s love-spooked lyrics, which read like tales from the dark side; from a nether world that keeps calling her back, and into which her lover cannot cross.
I m not much of a fatalist or anything, says Frazer, but I do like sad songs. I like stuff that s a bit melancholy, bittersweet.
As for the imagery I use, I spent a lot of time in that terrain north of San Francisco. Certain songs, like Destiny or A Place Where I Know , reflect that northern California landscape the rolling brown hills and scrubby trees and that sort of thing.
Frazer grew up in Sautee Nacooche in the Smoky Mountain region of Georgia, before moving to San Francisco where she now lives. Anyone familiar with Tarnation s Gentle Creatures, their flawed gem of a debut, or their more consistent new album, will know of Frazer s penchant for the Wild West, or at least the Wild West as depicted by those great spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. It was the twangtastic soundtracks, though, that she found most appealing.
I grew up with all those Ennio Morricone movies as well as TV series like Bonanza. I love the theme songs to a lot of those old westerns but I definitely wouldn t want to be living in that time. It wasn t a great time to be around. That isn t really what things sounded like in the 1800s.
Those movies are a concept of the 1960s basically; of a fellow from Italy and his concept of the West. He used psychedelic guitar, which is a real 60s thing.
While the tremolo arm of Tarnation guitarist Alex Oropeza may sound like it fell off the custom-made Gibson Les Paul of a Duane Eddy or a Dick Dale, there is more than just a six-string to to Tarnation s musical bow. The downbeat bass of Frazer s partner, Jamie Meagan (a Dubliner who was once a member of Puppy Love Bomb), has the gothic touch of Joy Division while the understated drumming of Joe Byrnes, a dead ringer for Steve Buscemi as it happens, would not be out of place in a jazz quartet in J.J. Smyth s.
I hope that our stuff sounds a bit timeless, avers Frazer. It doesn t sound completely like a product of the 50s or the 60s. It s not all retro. Though, obviously, it doesn t sound like most of the modern pop you d hear on the radio. I suppose it is nostalgic for instance, There s Someone has a Henry Mancini feel to it but there s a certain modern feeling to it too.
Other influences mentioned by Paula include Lee Hazelwood, Scott Walker, Roy Orbison, Billie Holiday, and of course Patsy Cline. But she is wary of any descriptions with the c word in them with or without the art-house prefix.
I m really not a country fan. In fact I hate any reference to country cos we re not a country band.
I do like Hank Williams but I definitely don t like anything that came out after the 60s in country. I like Patsy Cline but I m more into her jazz stuff. Sweet Dreams, for example: stuff that s orchestrated.
Having just finished some dates supporting Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, as well as being on after-hours drinking terms with Tindersticks, Paula Frazer is evidently not the line dancing type. In fact, she has even fronted experimental punk bands in the past ( We had two basses, one was really distorted ) as well as providing the musical entertainment for Hristo Stoichkov s car stereo. Probably.
I love Bulgarian singing, enthuses Frazer. I sang in an Eastern European women s choir for two-and-a-half years. That s where I found out how to go into different falsettos. I never was very good at that before.
She s come a hell of a long way, so. n
Mirador is out now on 4AD.