An expressive singer with an amazing range

TAKE AN EXPRESSIVE SINGER with amazing range, add an emotional tone that's mainly a dark shade of blue, throw in a mostly electronic backdrop that changes shape at every turn, and you've got Annette Farrington's Azure Wonder & Lust (CVB). Her voice was always a grabber during her years as the singer for Opium Den. And her solo debut does what a solo debut should do — it allows her to explore different musical ideas and to express herself more directly.

"There's a whole lot of longing and aching going on," Farrington notes in a humorous moment as we give the disc a preview spin. "When I was in Opium Den, we were trying to do something that nobody had ever heard before. I know that's an impossibility in the music world, but that was how we thought. We brought all of our influences together, our passions and our wisdoms and our quiet truths. Any of the pop you heard in that band, or any song with a pop-type guitar riff, was basically me. Melody is really the cornerstone of my life — it's something I hear all the time. Everything in life is a potential melody or rhythm as far as I'm concerned."

Still, Azure Wonder & Lust is a pop album only by the broadest definition. The songs allow Farrington to sing (and speak, and chant) in a number of different voices, with passing resemblance to everyone from Kate Bush (on "Viva," a rock-flavored track with leaps into the high registers) to Marlene Dietrich (on "I Might Not Be Here," which has a torchy cabaret feel and a French — rather than German — accent). She also gets into an unaccompanied vocal piece, some electronic pop in the vein of Splashdown (whose keyboardist, Kasson Crooker, appears on two tracks), and a bit of ethnic music (notably on "Black Man's Daughter," about her Bahamanian ancestry). But most of the songs are held together by that longing feeling, whether it's romantic or spiritual.

"I've done some cabaret singing in my lifetime," she notes. "I'll admit that I haven't mastered the relationship song yet; part of me would like to write a whole album of those kind of songs, but there's already people out there who do it very well. I think I'm an optimistic person, and I also felt that way in Opium Den, though I had a lot of baggage at the time. Then again, my optimism might be the same as someone else's depression."

Much of the disc's instrumental work was done by producer/programmer Anthony Resta, but Farrington's now putting together a band to play live — something she hasn't done since Opium Den broke up three years ago. "That's a big part of my expression, the dynamic that happens when you get a group of people together in a room. It's not something I want to give up."

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