Peter
Dizozza
"Pro-Choice on Mental Health" CD
Cinema
VII Recordings
Genres: concept pop
Cinema VII
321 East 12th St.
New York, NY
10003
Apr 5 - 11 2004 |
Peter Dizozza's ambitious Pro-Choice on Mental Health
album is a "seven song cycle with monologues and
mini-play." Essentially, this means you get seven tunes
(with melody and rhythm), and then a batch of spoken word recordings,
either with just Peter alone or with other actors as
well. The topic is, of course, sanity - how one should
feel entitled to act as they wish without being deemed
"insane" or "unstable." The songs comment on
these matters, while the spoken word pieces satire society's viewpoint
on the subject.
The tunes themselves are largely piano-and-vocal-driven numbers,
melodic and funny in nature. "Let Me Be (With You)", for
example, is an amusing and remarkably catchy number, with one basic
(albeit common) message - we should all have the right to be what we want to be.
Meanwhile, the corny Vegas-crooner influences of "The Song of
Laughter and Forgetting" make it one of my favourite songs on
this album.
The disc also comes with a computer component. This is,
basically, a short excerpt from a film called "The Last
Dodo." It's a bizarre, ridiculous video-clip that will be
enjoyed by fans of the absurd. It doesn't really have a
connection to the rest of the album, but makes for fun viewing nonetheless.
Dizozza's opinions are idealistic, and his music reflects
that. Sometimes Pro-Choice on Mental Health can get too
repetitive and preachy - this is often a problem with albums based largely on
monologues. However, if you're up for some very interesting
outsider pop - with a message - the large base of material on this
disc should keep you entertained for quite a while.
85%
Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 18 tracks + 8 hidden, distributed by CD
Baby, released 2001] |