Tom Waits - Alice (Anniversary Edition) (2002/2022)

This Friday Tom Waits will release the 20th anniversary limited edition vinyl reissues of his 2002 albums ‘Alice’ and ‘Blood Money’. New live performances of five tracks per record will also be made available digitally in a digital deluxe version.

Today the ‘Alice’ song “Lost In The Harbour” (live) is being shared ahead of Friday’s release. This rare live recording captures a chilling intimacy and includes a lyrical video created by Christy Smith transporting the viewer to an eerie, gloomy seascape with spells of radiant light. Says Waits: “Lost In The Harbour” “illustrates that[enemies] are neighbors with a shared fate and entwined roots. The port is like the sky, it contains everything.”
“The albums are as different as sleepwalking and chronic insomnia,” said Jon Pareles of The New York Times on their original release. Inspired very loosely by ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘Alice’ is full of lyrics about dreams, and many of the songs continue in a haze of brushed drums and husky horns. ‘Blood Money’ is heavier, different from Carnival distorted into ominous lullabies.”

Originally created for an avant-garde opera directed by Robert Wilson for the Thalia Theater in Hamburg in the winter of 1992, ‘Alice’ was Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan’s second collaboration with Wilson (they had previously collaborated on ‘The Black Rider ‘ from 1989). . Lyrically and musically, the songs are part of a cycle where each track relates to what precedes and what will follow, a puzzle that reveals itself as it unfolds and marks a daring step forward for Waits compositionally.

‘Blood Money’ lives in a completely different world, from brutal to tender with stirring rhythms and romantic melodies. It is a stark musical exposition of the human condition, a dark game of mortality in which Tin Pan Alley encounters the Weimer Republic.

‘Blood Money’ is based on the socio-political play ‘Woyzeck’, originally written by a young German poet Georg Buchner as an extra, cinematic piece in 1837 and inspired by the true story of a German soldier who was driven mad by a bizarre army. medical experiments and infidelity, which led him to kill his lover.

Waits and Brennan wrote songs for a vibrantly colored and burning, tragically romantic production of “Woyzeck” for their third collaboration with Robert Wilson, later to become “Blood Money.” “Woyzeck” premiered in November 2000 at the Betty Nansen Theater in Copenhagen and toured Europe and Asia, winning the Danish version of the Tony for Best Musical that year.

In late August, Waits premiered a live version of “God’s Away On Business” from “Blood Money,” featuring a lyrical video by Casey Waits featuring expressionistic, grim, woodcut imagery. This 2008 version from Edinburgh, Scotland will be featured on the digital deluxe version of ‘Blood Money’.

Both albums were recorded during the same period with many of the same musicians, but with different recording, mixing and mastering technicians. Waits and Brennan saw these songs as lyrical concept albums inspired by the stories behind the future staged productions.

Alice and Blood Money’s songs are conceived as song cycles, each in their own sonic worlds, written to be sung and performed by Waits. These years certainly marked a creatively fruitful period for them, as ‘Alice’ and ‘Blood Money’ came right after the huge success of 1999’s GRAMMY-winning ‘Mule Variations’ LP and tour. The resulting LPs were acclaimed upon release, but were also overshadowed by their high-profile predecessor. Over the past two decades, more fans and critics alike have come to embrace these works as some of Waits’ best.

Tracklist
01. Tom Waits - Alice
02. Tom Waits - Everything You Can Think
03. Tom Waits - Flowers Grave
04. Tom Waits - No One Knows I'm Gone
05. Tom Waits - Kommienezuspadt
06. Tom Waits - Poor Edward
07. Tom Waits - Table Top Joe
08. Tom Waits - Lost In The Harbour
09. Tom Waits - We're All Mad Here
10. Tom Waits - Watch Her Disappear
11. Tom Waits - Reeperbahn
12. Tom Waits - I'm Still Here
13. Tom Waits - Fish And Bird
14. Tom Waits - Barcarolle
15. Tom Waits - Fawn
16. Tom Waits - Table Top Joe (Live)
17. Tom Waits - Fish And Bird (Live)
18. Tom Waits - Lost In The Harbour (Live)
19. Tom Waits - Reeperbahn (Live)