Tom Waits - Orphans (Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards) [Digipak] (CD 2006)

Tom Waits is a fundamentally eccentric performer in any recording, but this represents a range of oddities that didn't make it into any other collection and is all the better for it. I only have a couple of Waits' records - Rain Dogs and the soundtrack from Tales of the Black Rider - and this spans a whole spectrum of his range, tastes and dynamics. The "Brawlers" has some songs that will only fail to get you shuddering and shaking along if you are bereft of a pulse, Bawlers is is truly touching and Bastards is as bewildering as it is delightful. What you often miss with an album is the dynamic changes that come with a compilation, but this has that with the added bonus of being able to discover and hear wonders for the first time.

There is no chance of over-famliarity due to endless radio playing of THESE songs.

Stand outs? Well, I would say a few numbers grabbed me on first listening: Sea of Love is mesmerising, Lie to Me is awesome, Little Drop of Poison conjures such amazing images and the spoken Army Ants is perplexingly hypnotic. Dog Door has to be heard for the trip-hop masterpiece it is and stands out like robocop at a bareknuckle fight. However, I'm looking forward to a few repeated listenings so as to really bathe in the shanties, scrams, shuffles and bellows and see how they affect me with some familiarity.

All in all, this is an amazing collection, heartily recommended and certainly not just for Waits aficionados.

Probably the definitve work of Tom Waits. Three albums, each with a different style, Bawlers delivers his own brand of off kilter ballads: Brawlers offers some excellent, raucus rock/blues tracks; Bastards delivers an egaging, kooky & ecclectic mix of the spoken word and just downright strange (even by his standards!) BUY IT NOW & listen forever.