When speaking of exceptional female voices Rickie Lee Jones has to be mentioned. I first listened to her nasal girlish voice in my early student days in the mid 80s. It was a tape from the library, the live album Girl At Her Volcano where she sings some jazz standards together with her own songs. To me she seemed to be the female equivalent to Oskar Matzerath, the tin drummer who doesn't want to grow up from Günter Grass's famous novel on the Nazi days in and around Danzig (today the Polish Gdansk). Her voice has always stayed the voice of a ten year old until today. Unpolished, direct, intense and emotional. There is a new album out by her called Sermon on Exposition Boulevard which is a nice surprise in itself as she hasn't been too prolific in her career. I listened to a couple of the songs and I was impressed. Not by the subject matter - apparently she has turned to Jesus - but by the bluesy rockish orientation. Most of the time in the past I had seen her more as a jazz chanteuse (Ghostyhead where she embraced trip-hop and electronics was different though). Listen to the two songs over at An Aquarium Drunkard and judge for yourself. Especially the second one, Falling Up is a miracle of a tune which emanates the spirit which has taken possession of her. The kind of ballad which heads for the skies and is down to earth at the same time.

Concerning faith: is it just a coincidence that even Brian Eno (who has the word "rational" written all over his bald head) admits that he is "getting into the religion business" when he talks about his 77 million paintings installation? On second thoughts he is rationalising like hell there. Religion seen as a means to surrender. It makes sense but in his project he is using the computer to inject chance and multiplicity into his visual creation. Megalomania or a new concept of god?