Truth be told, few records in my collection sound like Esther Ofarim’s Complicated Ladies. Well, truth be told, few albums will ever sound like it either…in anyone’s collection. A mixture of Israeli melismatic jazz with German liedermacher wouldn’t sound too out of the ordinary (at least in some circles). However, let’s say someone decided to mix all of that with Kraut minimalism and overtly experimental contemporary classical music, well that’s something that’s bound to sound unlike anything else. However, to do all of that, and exist in a collection of music that actually sounds captivating, well here exists that some kind of wonderful flash in a pan.
My apologies to my Israeli friends but outside of Germany and the Middle East, many of us in the west have been entirely lost to the world of Esther Ofarim. Born, in 1941, in then, British Palestine, to a Syrian Jewish family, Esther Zaied began her long journey to this point in which we caught up to her in 1958, when she met a young musician and dancer from Galilee, Abi Ofarim, and decided to take her youthful love of Hebrew folk singing out of the streets of Haifa and into the nascent Israeli Pop music world.
In short order, the duo of Esther and Abi Ofarim, would translate local notoriety in Israeli song festivals and radio playlists to actual songs they’d try to market elsewhere in Jewish enclaves around Europe. Their popularity as standards singers and song interpreters skyrocketed when Frank Sinatra (of all people) promoted them as an opening act during his performances in Israel. By the ‘60s, Esther managed to make the leap into European Pop stations and wound up on stages like Eurovision, becoming a household name in Germany, and threatening to make the jump to American markets on the strength of her singularly operatic vocalese. As a duo 1968’s “Cinderella Rockefella” landed them a hit on England’s pop hit list.
However, by the time the ‘70s rolled around Esther had grown increasingly tired of Abi’s role in their marriage and her own subservience to his creative vision. In the new decade after a marital split, Esther grew increasingly creative and worked to create solo albums that reflected more her own tastes. Going through the archives of French chanson, German schlager, and Western singer-songwriter music, she’d create truly inspired versions of songs from others like Leonard Cohen, or from Annie Haslam’s Renaissance, among more contemporary-minded Hebrew singer-songwriters like Shlomo Gronich. Hits, it seemed, were things she was venturing far from and having fewer and farther in between.
Sometime in the latter part of the ‘70s Esther returned to Israel and took a sabbatical from any new recordings. Working on rebuilding her connection with her homeland allowed Esther to build a strong live following and to tap into styles outside her noted beginnings. By the time of the new decade, Esther came back to Europe refreshed and ready to rekindle her career there.
Who knows what kind of cosmic connection brought Esther into the world Eberhard Schoener but one did occur. For Eberhard his connection to Esther most likely began in his own work with guys like Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland. Just a year before Esther’s return, Eberhard had started to dip his toes into more accessible music, after years of gravitating through the worlds of prog, minimalism, early ambient, new age, and purely experimental music.
Armed with a phalanx of synths and technology, coupled with interests in eastern music, had driven Eberhard to remember (somehow) a singer from his youth: Esther Ofarim. In her dramatic singing she saw some potential to combine the poetry of German authors Wolf Wondratschek and Ulf Miehe with his experiments with new electro-pop music (whatever that may be).
For Eberhard’s Time Square Esther was invited to try something out with him. Guesting on longform ambient ballads like “Ich schau ins Licht” we hear Esther’s fully capable transformation to torchlit jazz-influenced singer. Seeing these ideas work out here, they gave it almost a full two years of effort to create a new solo album just for her that could go further down that style they hinted at here.
In the liner notes to Complicated Ladies, Eberhard confesses to struggling mightily to reconcile all sorts of ideas they had going on. Would it be too electric? Esther preferred acoustic instruments. Would it be too classically-minded? Eberhard wanted to push the envelope, sonically. Both poets Wondratschek and Miehe wouldn’t water down their lyricism to make their parts superfluous. They had to make it work, somehow.
This is where it gets, no pun intended, complicated. Complicated Ladies forgoes much of what could have been needless pretentiousness for a sort of kosmiche chamber music that plays to all their shared strengths. In some way I think of it belonging to the world of Florian Fricke’s work with Djong Yun something unsurprising to consider in part due to Florian’s prior attempts to woo Esther to join an early version of Popol Vuh. Here Eberhard pulls off just a bit a of what could have occurred — just heavenly singing married with music that is as justly adorned.
While one song “Radio On” can be full of Eberhard’s fantastic synth squiggles, other songs like “Call The Circus” or the title cut move in quite graceful, tried and true ways, letting Esther Ofarim simply unfurl that gorgeous voice in quite a prismatic form that’s schooled by aeons of musical lineage.
For all the heady ways I was dreading describing this album, I actually think its far more accessible that it lets on. “Love Was A Run” takes cues from vocal jazz and classic cabaret, couching them in lovely, quiet, askew improvisation. “Vergessenes Lachen” situates us just this side of nocturnal ambient jazz while Esther belts out all these glimmers of Teutonic vocal intrigue that sounds both resplendent and yet completely out of step/time. Complicated Ladies is something you won’t get immediately but I wager once you do you’ll struggle just like me to find words to place this album.
For those who always feel a bit out of time, here’s something to look forward from.