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Listen to the vibrato palpable, timbre soft crossed by a melancholic. It is the call of a world that no longer exists, the echo of a whiteness vanished. The voice of Zooey Deschanel is one of the secrets of "Classics", the fifth album from She & Him, the first composed entirely of covers. Strange that the actress-singer and her musical partner M. Ward we are only now arrived. At the bottom of all their repertoire is an act of love for the classics. It is from 2008 winking crafts' 60s pop, to read and melodious songs of the girl group, in a retro musical taste. In "Classics" go even further back in time to when the rock'n'roll did not exist and teens were not with ears glued to the radio to hear Elvis Presley, but left for the war.
"We'll meet again," which closes the album, is one of the older things that Deschanel and Ward have recovered. Vera Lynn sang it during the Second World War, becoming the first choice of British soldiers at the front. To interpret this and the other twelve tracks on the album She & Him have chosen a live sound, enriched by the orchestral arrangements provided by winds. There is no bombast in here. The two use the colors of the orchestra without weighing the sound, aim at simplicity, subtleties, nuances, between stamps ultravintage guitar and jazz touches like never before in their history. They go around the time - from 1930 to "Would you like to take a walk?" To 1974's "She" - choosing songs according to their personal taste and realizing performance that have a heat usually fugitive in albums like. Just in "Unchained melody" take some liberties transforming it into a folk tormenting with the help of the voices of the Chapin Sisters. Do not miss other troubled love songs, but this is the only time when "Classics" abandons the tone light, the air of cuteness.
Zooey Deschanel has a powerful voice, does not possess a large extent, is not particularly versatile. But unlike other actresses lent to the world of music knows how to leverage the color of the voice and interpretation. Confronted with a repertoire seasoned but not granted, gives the best pieces in the 60s, those that resemble more closely the repertoire autograph She & Him. This is the case of "Stay awhile" by Dusty Springfield, a reference point for her, and "Oh no, not my baby" of the couple Gerry Goffin-Carole King, deliciously measured between strings, horns and bells. Deschanel is authoritative when interpreting "I'll never be free", already in the discography of Willie Nelson and Van Morrison, and makes it look lovely when the piece of 1953 "Teach me tonight" even older. Ward does not have the same charm. Sings in the only known piece, the "She" by Charles Aznavour already in the repertoire of Elvis Costello, and duets with Deschanel in "Stars fell on Alabama" with the stamp of a hoarse ironically Louis Armstrong, nell'ammiccante "Would you like to take a walk? "and the standard 40s" Time after time "that Frank Sinatra sang in the movie" it Happened in Brooklyn. "
Posted in Italy only in digital - for the CD and the vinyl one must turn to imports - "Classics" is not the best album of the duo. She & Him are more surprising when they interpret songs that seem written fifty years ago but they are brand new. Nevertheless, in "Classics" avoid the trap of the disks that are dripping with nostalgia those are heavy, cold, dark, this is light, spontaneous, bright. Resembles a flight backwards, in a time more reassuring. It gives the idea that the pop-rock is giving up to make sense of the contemporary. Or maybe, just, sometimes we need to be reminded where does the music we love. The Thirty-nine minutes of "Classics" instill nostalgia for a time that we have not lived. We like Zooey Deschanel in the video for "Stay awhile" happy while dancing with the ghost of the past.
