Mirador North Dakota

Mirador

Tarnation

4AD /Reprise Records, 1997

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 11/04/1997

Usually, when I throw a CD into the player from a group thatI've never heard from before, it's the result of some enterprisingperson at a record company trying to push a band into the mediaspotlight. The results are kind of like playing Russian Roulette -sometimes it's good, sometimes it's messy.

In the case of today's review, my contact at 4AD isn't to blame,it's me. After surfing their site, I wrote to him and said, "Hey,Tarnation sounds like they'd be a cool band to review. Mind sendingme a copy of their disc?"

And I blame myself for liking their sophomore effort, Mirador, to the point of calling it one of the betterreleases I've blasted in the Pierce Archives (Dave Wannstedt, go tohell - and take the Bears with you) in a long time.

Led by multi-instrumentalist / vocalist Paula Frazer, Tarnationreminds me a lot of a slightly harder-edged Cowboy Junkies. Someonewho picked up this disc expecting to hear the ambient noise longassociated with bands on the 4AD label will be in for one hell of ashock. Folk? Country-western? How dare they?