Thanks to the chance meeting of translation student
Virna Lindt
and
Compact
label guru
Tot Taylor
on a train, as the liner notes to the reissue of
Shiver
explain,
Lindt
first made its mark with the nervy
John Barry
-meets-
new wave
mania of
"Attention Stockholm,"
the single which also leads off her debut album as a whole. Spy atmospherics permeate the album and not just in sound -- thus song titles like
"The Dossier on Virna Lindt"
"Letter to Sergei."
But while
and her musical collaborators (led by
Taylor
, credited among other things with playing "Bond guitars") are definitely enamored of a mythical jet-set past where dapper secret agents are busy running around space age sets with a drink in hand, there's actually less per se retro about
than many other albums that followed in its wake -- instead of simply cool styles, things at times feel nervous, jittery, a response to a time and place (early-'80s U.K. grimness, in the music scene and real life) that's of the moment. That said, the moody-start-of-the-film feeling of
"Episode One"
practically begs to soundtrack a sequence where
Dirk Bogarde
hauls a body out of the Seine.
herself acts less as the lead singer and more as the narrator of her own adventures, a
Modesty Blaise
running rampant and occasional striking reflective poses amid orchestral swells and energetic percussion. When she does take a more formal lead singing role, she comes across as a bit light if not unpleasantly so, as on
"Pillow Talk."
Meantime, the jaunty piano-led kick of
"I Beat the System"
and the moody '70s rather than '60s
lounge
-ness of
"Underwater Boy"
shows that there's more here than a restrictive stereotype. ~ Ned Raggett