It’s as though Tori Amos was the last of and endangered species to make it onto the ark – a henna-haired Scots-Cherokee-Southern space cadet who established herself with the mercurial Little Earthquakes and was thereafter allowed develop a career proper, as opposed to being bullied into battery hen status, pumping out xeroxed quick fit identikit copies of that first hit album. Even better, she managed cultivated a following that was borderline cargo cult. Sure, she could annoy with her affectations and her language-mangling mannerisms, making a six part mini series out of a single vowel sound, but for all her myth-taking and witchy-witchery, Amos never lapsed into the shrink-speak of say, Alanis.
In short, she’s got integrity, and you can’t rent that.
The Beekeeper is like a whole new career in itself: 20 full-blown pocket symphonies, 79 minutes plus of dense, deftly orchestrated music. These days she doesn’t suffer the same burning in the gut that made ‘Cornflake Girl’ or ‘Precious Things’ so remarkable, and the band sound comfortable rather driven, but there’s something to be said for craft. Amos hasn’t changed much in 15 years, but nor can you say she’s stagnated. If anything, she’s moved out of that Kate Bush/Joni Mitchell loft space and has come to inhabit the sort of parallel reality occupied by the John Cales of the world.
Her band, the virtuoso Matt Chamberlain on drums, Jon Evans on bass and Mac Aladdin on guitars, are a tight but versatile lot, capable of stretching as far as the slinky samba of ‘Sweet The Sting’ and the low-slung Louisiana funk of ‘Witness’. The playing is supple but not showy (check out the ease with which the brushes, piano and acoustic guitar interweave on ‘Jamaica Inn’), further downplayed by a dry, almost airless mix, unencumbered by modish effects or state of the art gimmicks.
What Amos does best are weird variations on old English folksong (‘Parasol’), or Michael Nyman type arpeggios offset by dramatic breathy vocals and multiple counterpoint harmonies (‘Original Sinsuality’). Or ‘The Power Of Orange Knickers’, in which a sober and understated piano melody belies the wonderfully daft title. Or ‘Goodbye Pisces’, a cute kimono-clad curio which could be John singing to Yoko circa Double Fantasy.
Mind you, at an hour and twenty it’s probably asking too much for a clean sweep, and there are a couple of tunes aboard that can’t quite pay their passage, not least the bizarre quasi reggae of ‘Ireland’. And yes, sometimes the innate prettyness of Amos’s voice can cast her perilously close to MOR songbird (‘Martha’s Foolish Ginger’). All the same, she shouldn’t be hung for the sins of her lessers. Unbelievers will remain unbelievers, but there’s enough eating and drinking in The Beekeeper to keep Amos’s acolytes quiet for another couple of years.