Suzanne Vega – Close-Up Vol.3 – States of Being (2011)

1. Undertow			play
2. When Heroes Go Down
3. My Favorite Plum
4. Solitude Standing
5. Cracking
6. Last Years Troubles	play
7. Solitaire
8. Tombstone
9. Blood Makes Noise
10. 50-50 Chance
11. Penitent
12. Straight Lines
13. Pornographers Dream
14. Instant of the Hour After 

Acoustic Guitar – Gerry Leonard, Suzanne Vega
Bass – Michael Visceglia
Electric Guitar – Gerry Leonard
Percussion – Doug Yowell
Producer – Suzanne Vega
Strings [String Quartet] – Brooklyn Rider
Vocals – Suzanne Vega

The third in a series of thematic albums that find Suzanne Vega revisiting her songbook (and not incidentally creating new recordings of her older songs that she owns rather than some major label), Close-Up, Vol. 3: States of Being collects 14 tunes that focus on various forms of emotional turmoil, and encompass what she calls “the freakier side of my songwriting.” Just as she did on the first two Close-Up albums, Vega strips these songs down to their essence, and while her guitar isn’t the only instrument on these new versions, the arrangements are spare and intimate even when she introduces strings and a backing band to the proceedings, and her voice is front and center at all times, her performances carrying the weight of her elegant wordplay and carefully structured scenarios. Vega produced Close-Up, Vol. 3, and her choices are clever, summoning an impressive degree of atmosphere and color with relatively simple backing (and the distorted guitar and percussion on “Blood Makes Noise” do an impressive job of standing in for the busy electronic clatter of the original recording). Vega’s vocal performances here are strong and confident, often more so than they were on her early albums, and she’s lived with this material long enough to communicate the desires and anxieties of her characters like a gifted actress. And like the other volumes in this series, this features a new song, in this case “Instant of the Hour After,” a collaboration with Duncan Sheik from a theater piece drawn from the writings of Carson McCullers, and it’s certainly on a par with the other material cherry-picked from over 20 years of record-making. While fans will have to ask themselves how many of these songs they want to own again, the craft and imagination that has gone into Close-Up, Vol. 3: States of Being sets this apart from most albums in which artists re-record their songs for a new label, and the results confirm Suzanne Vega is still a powerful interpreter of her own material. ---Mark Deming, AllMusic Review

Suzanne Vega, jedna z najzdolniejszych piosenko–pisarek swojego pokolenia, wydała trzecią płytę z cztero - albumowej serii, będącej nową aranżacją jej dotychczasowego materiału. Od 11 lipca 2011 na sklepowych półkach można znaleźć jedną z najbardziej intymnych płyt piosenkarki.

Płyta “Close - Up Vol.3, States of Being” dotyczy głównie człowieka, jego stanu umysłu oraz miejsc do których trudno jest dotrzeć. Każdy może być narratorem utworów znajdujących się na płycie, ponieważ mogą dotyczyć każdego z nas.

- "Zwykłam nazywać tę serię piosenkami zdrowia psychicznego. Wyrażają one stan umysłu, ale nie tylko. Nie nazywałabym ich moimi osobistymi piosenkami, ale opisem miejsca gdzieś głęboko w człowieku" - mówi Suzanne Vega.

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