In retrospect, I should�ve taken a clue from the title. When I first heard about the contents of this disc, I was greatly intrigued and mildly excited. A recording of songs, sung songs, by some excellent contemporary composers, including Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier (a song by Lucier!), James Tenney and Katrina Krimsky, the last of whom I hadn�t heard anything from in ages. Jacqueline Humbert has been associated with Ashley for more than a couple of decades and, where she arguably fits into at least one of the �character� modes for his productions, essentially she appears to be something of an avant Piaf with a burred baby voice and a terminal case of archness.

Chanteuse is equally the creation of David Rosenboom, another composer for whom I once had great expectations (due to the finer moments on his Systems of Judgment) but who has been rather disappointing since then, largely because of an overly formal academicism in his work (in the sense that one hears in much music that has flowed out of Princeton or IRCAM). He supplies the underlying music here, generally synths, computer programs and the occasional piano, but rarely to any special effect. The disc opens with a decent piece by Ashley�s son Sam, that dabbles in Native American lore. It�s followed by a Rosenboom piece, �Attunement,� that�s all gauzy washes and woozy eco-consciousness and a similarly lackluster Joan LaBarbara work that�s all overdone sighs and moans. Ashley�s �Don�t Get Your Hopes Up� redeems things somewhat, treading vaguely in Julee Cruise/Angelo Badalamenti territory, structured very much like a traditional medium tempo pop song with an attractive hook. George Mannupelli�s �Short Subject� is also an oddity, contrasting C&W lyrics and Dolly Parton channeling with concrete sounds-of-the-city underpinnings. At this point, I still held out hope, but Humbert�s own �Profile� dashed it. A dialogue of sorts (over someone practicing piano, a young girl�s complaints and something like a yapping dog) between an electronically augmented therapist (much of Humbert�s work on the album is so processed) and her patient, it reads like some painful reject of an NPR comedy skit. �Do you feel irritated often?� �Why the hell do you ask me that?� �Are you having difficulties with concentration?� �What did you say just now?� Cue laugh track. All delivered in such an aggravatingly arch tone as to force one to look for something to slap.

James Tenney�s �Listen�!�, written in memory of John Lennon in 1982, is a witty number, discreetly referencing several Beatles tunes while Lucier�s �Lullaby� is actually a series of instructions, largely involving soft, blowing sounds, but is much more interesting to read than to hear. Other tracks are worse, including Gustavo Matamoros� �Peace Piece� (I�ll let the reader imagine the woeful lyrical content from the title alone) and two exceptionally weak closing songs by Humbert and Rosenboom where her chanteuse qualities are in full bloom. However - and in this context this is almost hair-pullingly annoying - there�s one gem buried here, one gorgeous song that will require the rest of this mediocre release to remain in my collection: Ashley�s �Empty Words,� a delightful honky-tonk piece from 1962 which her voice suits perfectly, emerging gradually from the sounds of a campfire and the dark forest like a shard of ancient vinyl pulled from a long-forgotten slag heap. An absolutely marvelous song, damn it, that I�ll be whistling for weeks.