Taming The Tiger (1998)

Taming The Tiger (1998)

Taming The Tiger would be Mitchell’s last album of original material until 2007’s Shine; in between, Mitchell’s albums would rework previously released material and interpret the songs of other songwriters. Released in the wake of a renewed interest in Mitchell’s music following the confounding success of Turbulent Indigo four years earlier, Taming The Tiger is that album’s exact opposite; it is a record so wide open and capacious, it seems to defy gravity. Previous flirtations with nascent digital technology made Mitchell sound outmoded and alienated, but here, Mitchell sounds very much at home inside the glossy sheen of digitally processed sounds. Everything about Taming The Tiger is layered and lush: guitars seem to exhale spindrifts beneath Mitchell’s voice, while gauzy piano lines chart their ballet-like melodies in shadowy charcoal. Closing instrumental “Tiger Bones” recalls nothing so much as the Durutti Column, while Greg Leisz’s reverb-thick pedal steel on “No Apologies” should satisfy Baeleric-minded Krautrockers looking to relax after a hard day’s motorik. This mood is maintained throughout, and the spell of icy, immaculate ambience never breaks. This does result in the songs themselves getting occasionally subsumed by the undertow, but this small complaint can be assuaged by repeat listens, during which melodies begin to grow bolder, eventually becoming indelible. Taming The Tiger shares its spectral qualities with other growers like Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, Arthur Russell’s World of Echo, and, more recently, Destroyer’s Your Blues. Like these, Taming The Tiger demands patience, but rewards it, too; it’s a taste worth acquiring.