Paula Rae Gibson: No More Tiptoes
33 Records 33JAZZ159 | ***
Paula Rae Gibson (v); Tom Pilling (p, ky). No rec. date

A trenchantly individual piece of work, No More Tiptoes is the debut CD from London-born singer, poet, photographer and filmmaker Paula Rae Gibson, written in response to the death of her husband, the distinguished British TV and film director Brian Gibson. Stripped down to just keyboard and voice, music-making doesn't get much more personal than this. Indeed at times it feels that you're eavesdropping on someone's private grief.

Some of the songs almost give the impression of being improvised, Busy Fairies being a prime example, while others such as I'll Always Walk Away have a more clearly defined harmonic motion. Pianist Tom Pilling creates a variety of atmospheric soundscapes, from rippling right-hand figurations and booming bass octaves to the merest chordal fragments, against which the singer delivers her painful and questioning soliloquies in a voice that at times is so gossamer-light it threatens to evaporate into the ether. A disc that's simultaneously disconcerting and moving.

Peter Quinn