Even if you don't know Dani Siciliano's name, you may very well recognize her voice. For the past six years, she's provided the mellifluous vocals for some of Matthew Herbert's more recognized works. Her warm, full-bodied tone decorated both Around the House-- one of the more pleasant surprises on Pitchfork's Best of the 1990s redux list-- and the more jazz-inflected Bodily Functions, which should be a lock to place on a selection of this decade's top albums. This year, Herbert and Siciliano stick to their familiar roles but this time she gets her name above the title on her debut solo record, Likes....
Herbert has put a lot of recent effort into patronage: he's focused energies on his Accidental Records label (which recently issued the Matthew Herbert Big Band LP Goodbye Swingtime and the well-received You Are Here compilation) and has now assisted with production on Likes..., although the inspiration and credit should go to Siciliano, who recorded the album in her new self-made studio. Still, it (thankfully) doesn't fall far from the tree that Herbert and Siciliano planted together years ago: Sometimes sparse and always delicate vocals, clicking and whirring beats, the occasional funeral parlor brass and austere strings.
Despite Siciliano's touch, it's the sonics that often take center stage on album highlights such as "Same" and second single "Extra Ordinary". The all-too-short interlude "Canes & Trains" is reminiscent of the fantastical mix of percussive clatter and top-hat-and-tails of Dancer of the Dark, and it segues well into the martial, back-alley rattle of Walk the Line, Matthew and Dani's most Tricky/Martina moment to date. The lowlights come with the straightforward electro-pop track "She Say Cliché", and "All the Above", featuring Herbert's Icelandic protégé Mugison, who proves an underwhelming match for Siciliano's vocals. A lounge version of Nirvana's "Come as You Are" could have been gauche, but Siciliano draws out the song's already languid tones with far-away sighs and the rather touching emphasis on the word "memory." It's the same trick that the Scissor Sisters do with "relax" on their Frankie Says: "Comfortably Numb" cover, but with a quite different effect.
On Likes..., the overall effect is much as one would expect from Siciliano and Herbert. It's a record that, at its most atmospheric, hints at the Northern European noir of Nico, but splits the difference between the former VU chanteuse's early singer/songwriter work for the Immediate label and the darker tones of her 70s solo efforts. The middle ground may not be as captivating or unexpected as either extreme would have been, but there's still plenty to here to recommend.
