Watershed (Deluxe Edition) [Limited]

Performer: k.d. lang
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. WATERSHED is the first album K.D. Lang has ever produced by herself, and as such, it sounds like a culmination of nearly every sound the Canadian singer-songwriter has ever explored in her career, save the manic rockabilly cowpunk of her debut album, 1987's ANGEL WITH A LARIAT. The lush, torchy feel of 1992's INGENUE and the jazzier direction of her later albums are the most obvious touchstones for the warmth and intimacy of WATERSHED, with the wistful opener "I Dream of Spring" and the cocktail lounge balladry of "Sunday" the most obvious standouts in that category. Elsewhere, the country-tinged sway of the harmony-heavy "Flame of the Uninspired" and the semi-rustic banjo-led folk of "Jealous Dog" recall the sound of SHADOWLAND and ABSOLUTE TORCH AND TWANG, while the gentle Brazilian pulse of "Upstream" and the minimalist electronics of "Shadow and the Frame" point towards new areas of exploration. One of Lang's finest and most self-assured records, WATERSHED is an essential listen.

Rolling Stone (p.82) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "WATERSHED is first-rate singer-songwriter music; Lang fuses the various styles she has tapped -- country, pop, Brazilian -- with an alluring integration." Uncut (p.87) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[With] a voice that only grows richer, and some vividly minimal arrangements -- a subtle soundworld of sparse acoustics, steel guitars, electric piano and brooding clouds of strings." JazzTimes (p.116) - "[T]he songwriting is uniformly superb....It is the sweet-flowing 'Coming Home,' with its Buddhist roots, carefree romantic satisfaction and softly powerful sense of hard-won enlightenment that is the Hope among these diamonds." No Depression (p.67) - "A collection of languid, meditative, naturalistic ballads, it's the first album by Lang that she produced on her own, playing everything from guitar and keyboards to harp, banjo and drum programming....It's a handsome production, full of lovely touches." Q (Magazine) (p.96) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n album lush and heady with romantic intoxication, even summoning up the ghost of Karen Carpenter on a sumptuous 'Once In A While'." The Word (magazine) (p.95) - "The great value of WATERSHED, her new album, is in its combining of the psychological and the emotional....These are songs from both the head and the heart."

When she first emerged in the '80s, Canadian singer k.d. Lang was heavily influenced by the swooping, crystalline vocal style of country queen Patsy Cline. She quickly showed herself to be a songwriter of considerable depth, simultaneously forward-looking and roots-conscious. By the time of her fifth album she was branching boldly into non-C&W idioms such as adult contemporary, all the while forging a sound all her own.

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