Jad Fair and
Kramer's first collaboration in over a decade resulted in 1999's The Sound of Music, released on
Kramer's Shimmy Disc label. As on their first effort, 1988's Roll the Barrel, a sense of inventiveness and whimsy threads through each song. On The Sound of Music,
Kramer focused on just that, composing and recording all of the music before
Fair stepped in the studio, imagining
Fair's voice and its possibilities.
Fair then listened to the songs and wrote some of his signature abstract-yet-accurate lyrics; this time, the subject matter was the women he had met in the last year. The offbeat creativity of this dynamic duo makes The Sound of Music an engaging and decidedly different album. ~ Heather Phares