Patricia Barber Embraces Silence & Space in Her Take on Stevie Wonder’s “All In Love Is Fair"

 

Today, Patricia Barber artfully transforms Stevie Wonder’s “All In Love Is Fair” into a delicate yet vibrant piano ballad, offering a special preview of what’s to come on her upcoming album of standards, Clique (August 6, Impex Records). On “All In Love Is Fair,” the Chicago jazz star pulls the Innervisions track into her own aesthetic domain, embracing silence and empty space while pulling the lyrics’ heartbreaking message inward. Captured in Digital eXtreme Definition by GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Jim Anderson, Barber’s voice takes center stage with captivating clarity and the highest fidelity. 

Listen to “All In Love Is Fair” here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/patriciabarber/all-in-love-is-fair-5

"‘All in Love Is Fair’ needs transparency, emptiness, a feeling that you're close to a precipice,” Barber said of the vulnerable process of recording such a difficult song both technically and emotionally. “Sometimes in concert I start a song and fully expect my band to come in at some point (if we don't have an explicit arrangement) but to my surprise, they don't. They leave me out there on that ice floe all by myself. It is an ethos of this trio. We embrace ‘silence.’ And it is a specialty of Jim Anderson's as well. Capturing silence is a high art that comes with work and experience. At home I practiced outlining the harmony while playing the fewest amount of notes.”

While Barber’s previous album, Higher, showcased her incredible talent for composing moody art songs, Clique takes her back to the roots of her renown: her ability to connect and reinterpret American classics from all genres and eras. It puts her into an elite group, a class almost unto herself, a “clique” she leads. Across the record Patricia "respects traditions, bends them to make her own points, and freshens them into something new," as observed by NPR's Susan Stamberg in Clique’s liner notes. A recent review of Clique raved about the album’s “undeniable sense of coolness and a consistent infectious groove that just grabs you and doesn’t let go.” 

On lead single “This Town,” WBGO says Barber’s tender approach to the Frank Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood hit comes “juxtaposed with the fiery edge of her piano playing, in signature Barber fashion." Listen to “This Town” and read more here: http://bit.ly/PatriciaBarberWBGO

Clique, recorded, mixed and mastered in Digital eXtreme Definition (352.8kHz/32bit) at Chicago Recording Company’s Studio 5, is due out August 6th on Impex Records. Pre-order the album here via Impex Records: MQA CD / SACD

Clique Tracklist

1. This Town (Lee Hazlewood)
2. Trouble Is A Man (Alec Wilder)
3. Mashup (Patricia Barber)
4. Samba de Uma Nota Só / One Note Samba (Antônio Carlos Jobim/Newton Mendonça)
5. I Could Have Danced All Night (Lerner & Loewe)
6. The In Crowd (Billy Page)
7. Shall We Dance? (Rodgers & Hammerstein II)
8. Straight No Chaser (Thelonious Monk)
9. All In Love Is Fair (Stevie Wonder)

 

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About Impex Records 

Since 2010, Impex Records has carried on the pioneering spirit and technical artistry of the legendary Cisco Music label, founded in Japan in 1968 and run since 2008 by the same audio lovers who then formed Impex Records. With more than 30 years of experience in domestic audio production and 150 titles released, Cisco Music stepped up the analog reissue game by partnering with the most outstanding engineers from Japan to introduce many techniques for flat and silent vinyl surfaces used by other labels. Cisco Music even introduced the pioneering line of audiophile reissue LPs, King Records’ Super Analogue Disc, to rapturous reviews and tremendous sales success in America.

The Impex Records catalog continued in the Cisco mold of bringing peerless production and presentational values to some of the best-loved and most iconic jazz, classical and American pop music: Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Earth Wind & Fire, Miles Davis, Jennifer Warnes, Billy Joel, Jascha Heifetz, and Thelonious Monk have been joined by original multi-format productions from Patricia Barber and more.