SMILING & WAVING

Anja, the Daughter of jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek, with Steven Wilson and Robert Wyatt, and all together on one album should make for something interesting and certainly enough it does. Steven does production for the album and plays various instruments on various tracks but not the track with Robert Wyatt. Robert only provides vocals for one song, The Diver. Robert later did cover a song he wasn't on for this album, Stay Tuned, and Richard Barbieri (another Porcupine Tree conspirator, Wyatt not counting yet as far as I know) puts in an appearance on one song, Stay Tuned, which was the one that Wyatt covered.

The center star is of course Anja. It's her project, not her first album, and the rest of the musicians do serve as supporting artists for her vision. Lyrically and perhaps musically you get a strong woman's perspective on the difficulties of life. A dark and chilling perspective at times.

This album is a bit like some of Angleo Badalamenti's soundtrack work with David Lynch: dark and mellow and jazzy and dreamy. Anja's lyrics and music are a mix of the disturbing with beauty. No-man comes to mind too, but I like Anja's vocal style much better than Tim Bowness'.

"Emerging through water. That's all we know. On hands and knees towards the shore. That's all we know."