Big news! Tori Amos’s Boys For Pele is officially available on vinyl again for the first time in 20 years! Why is this important? Well, many consider Boys For Pele to be her opus, and I’m one of them. Yes, totally biased here because this is one of my “desert island albums,” hands down. A lot of people lump Amos into the generic singer-songwriter category, which is a huge oversight, especially when you consider this record. To say the compositions/themes transcended her previous material would be an understatement. Some say it was experimentation with psychedelics that helped foster its creation (seems plausible), but that’s the story of a thousand different albums. The true experiments here were sonic, as the production was considered just as much as the musical and lyrical content when they decided to set up the studio in an old Irish church. It’s the first we get a true taste of the depth’s of Tori’s signature vocal layering, harmonizing with herself over and over again to the point where the listener has to focus intently to figure out exactly what’s going on. It’s also the first glimpse of how remarkable a composer she is, especially with harpsichord arrangements. Oh yeah, and the freakin’ album art is, uh, ICONic. I could go on and on (seriously, I could give a two hour lecture on this album), but I beg you to trust me and listen if you’ve never heard it before. And make sure you listen to a version (like this reissue) that doesn’t substitute the remix of “Professional Widow” for the original or the alt. version of “Talula” for the original – yes there are multiple versions of this album, but the original is key. -MLE
Tori Amos – Boys For Pele 2LP
Listen: “Father Lucifer”
Read: Tori Amos’s Boys for Pele: a much misunderstood work of dark, wounded magic
Father Edison – new releases, reissues and restocks…
