There have long been songs in which women turn the tables on despicable men who have acted shamefully. It’s normal, necessary. Think Peggy Lee and how scathing she was in “Why Don’t You Do Right?”. Or think Shirley Horn, softly, withering, deadly in “You’re Blasé”…But now think again. Perhaps men in the past escaped too lightly. Singer-songwriter-actress Siret Tuula notes with some satisfaction that “every man who has entered my life has ended up as a song.” “To Mr.X” (Lazy Cat Records) is her highly impressive debut album with a stunningly good band. And since Tuula is from Tallinn in Estonia, a mere seven and a half degrees South of the Arctic Circle, there are songs here (not all of them) in which revenge is served up genuinely, literally…stone cold.
Siret Tuula’s unashamedly combative spirit also shines through from what I have read of her biography. (I have to admit, I’m having fun writing this bit). Not only does she have a degree in the law, she has an impressive set of skills to fight back. In her busy career as an actor in film, TV and theatre, she’s done stagefighting with “rapier, quarterstaff, hand-to hand fighting, falls, high-falls and armed combat”, and also undertaken “challenges in icy waters.” Joking aside, here is a singer with real character, a great combination of vocal and dramatic presence, plus superb musicality, and the capacity to portray a whole range of different moods extremely vividly – (maybe that owes something to her previous role as a TV weather presenter…). I’m hearing that there was a real buzz at the completely packed-out album launch a couple of days ago, and I’m looking forward to linking to the video of that when we get it.
Sometimes in these well-crafted songs, skilfully arranged by Karl Madis Pennar, Eevalotta Matikainen and Martin Söderbacka, we find anger and resentment stirring slightly below the surface. “(I never) Fall out of You” is a playful song about a relationship with a celebrity who has decided unilaterally to retreat. The music is upbeat in a charming slightly vacuous way, as if it’s the theme for a TV game show, but the words are from a different place altogether: a deeply despairing “I fall apart…”
“Your Best Friend Got Your Girl” is the classic Tristan and Iseult myth, here seen through the eyes of a triumphant and upbeat Iseult. The song starts out gently, even innocently as a verse with guitar colla voce (the very fine Karl Madis Pennar), but that is a cleverly disguised diversion from what is on its way. Tuula sets off on a succession of hard-swinging victory laps, in full knowledge of precisely where her feelings of triumph are going to inflict the most damage. She lands precisely aimed blows on her ex with these words: “Dancing close to him, making out with him, waking next to him, that’s right, your best friend got your girl!”
This album has other sides too; all is certainly not dark with Nordic døm and gløm. “Let’s Get Irresponsible” is a carefree, sybaritic duet with fellow singer Kristjan Ilumäe to the accompaniment of a relay race of jazz soloists in quick succession. The album notes say it’s about “a spontaneous decision to leave the party with someone charming, magnetic.” And the final song, “Only Man in my Life” has a twist at the end. Could this finally be the bliss of connubial commitment? Er, not exactly… We are left to discover from the very last sounds on the album that the true recipient of her affection is in fact…a contented pooch.
Musical standards throughout are just fabulous, and the album has been very well produced in Los Angeles by Paul Grundman . Special praise is certainly due to the main pianist, the Estonian Mathei Florea. His contribution to the wonderfully slow-burning song “Irony” is just stellar. One might have a slight cavil: maybe a native English-speaker could have ironed out some occasional infelicities in the language, but the emotions here are palpable. There is absolutely no mistaking Tuula’s authenticity and clarity of expression. I genuinely hope that I have the chance one day to witness this singer and her great band performing, singing, acting live.
