TOM WAITS
"MULE
VARIATIONS"
ANTI/EPITAPH RECORDS

Nine years have gone by since the last Tom Waits release, too long in my eyes. The man with the quick wit and rapid fire verbal assault is back at it with wild abandon. "Mule Variations" is a crazy and spiritual ride through the mind of Waits, like all of his previous works. His references to the "almighty" run rampant throughout the disk and the addition of turntable player D.J. M.Mark Reitman in four of the sixteen tracks adds a hip nineties flavor (uncharacteristic for Waits who never seemed to care for keeping up with trends). "Big in Japan" opens the disk, with Les Claypool on bass and Larry Lalonde on guitar, a rather deranged song with classic Waits verbiage "I got the bread but not the butter / I got the wind but not the shutter / but I'm big in Japan".

The next few cuts return Tom to his folk roots, which is cool, with "Hold On" doing it's best to sound like "Brruuuuuce". Great song! Next up is "Get Behind The Mule", with it's chain gang, cottin' pickin' feel and classic Charlie Musselwhite harp work. Track number eight, my favorite, is called "What's The Building", a spoken word offering which really brings out the story teller in Tom. Very creepy percussive and turntable sounds weave their way through the track which ends up telling us "We have a right to know".

Some of the cuts need more than a couple of times through before you notice you're tapping your foot along and finding something very unique about that song. "Filipino Box Spring Hog", as far as I can tell, is Tom's gleeful and distorted view of a southern, back-alley pig roast. His imagery and poetic flare have taken firm root throughout this cd. All in all this disk is worth buying, especially if you're a Waits fan, if not for the sheer sake of a technicolor, "rum soaked" escapade.

- Doug LaChapelle

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