Madeleine Peyroux delivers her most bonafide troubadour’d album in years, possibly since her debut Dreamland. Producer Larry Klein keeps the atmosphere like you’re sitting around the campfire and taking in Peyroux’s delivery of songs by herself, Klein, David Baerwald, Leonard Cohen and others as well as a poem by Paul Eluard. All through the album, Peyroux is in charming mode as she mixes and match with Klein (who adds “video game sounds” to his bass and piano arsenal), Dean parks/g, Brian MacLeod/dr, Pet Kuzma/B3, Patrick Warren/p-key and a rotating caravan of horns, strings, voices and percussion coming in and out like guests at a buffet dinner.
With casual guitar and accordion, Peyroux strolls through the camp on “Party Time” while delivering sepia tones on Cohen’s title track. Fluttering effects like bat wings or camp fire snaps serve as background for her on “All My Heroes” while a breezy organ blows through the affair on the upbeat and peppy “The Brand New Deal. Peyroux puts her beret back on for the Left bank “Liberte’” and saunters through the Latin Quarter on “We Might As Well Dance.” No one takes you through the back roads of bohemia like Ms. Peyroux, and this album is one that makes you want to join the circus with her and her troupe.