MARC RIBOT - Map Of A Blue City

A project nurtured for over twenty years, an album that record labels deemed too obscure and cryptic to release, but Marc Ribot's tenacity has overcome every resistance, and “Map Of A Blue City” is finally a reality.

Known mostly for his role as guitarist in the court of Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull and Elvis Costello, Ribot boasts a rather fascinating discography, alternating jazz-rock albums with more experimental works and some collaborative projects under the name Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog.

Marc Ribot's new solo work is intimate, confidential, close to a lo-fi spirit that in truth benefits from a carefully refined sonic script, in which the protagonist is not just the guitar, but also the voice.

The musician tries his hand at a spoken/sung delivery that is almost a whisper, a delicate tenor timbre that holds firm the narrative power of the nine tracks.

It's no surprise that the first recording sessions were shared with the late producer Hal Willner, before passing into the hands of Ben Greenberg; “Map Of A Blue City” is an album where emotions walk a razor's edge, where the tones are never flashy, even when the melancholy bossa nova of “Daddy's Trip To Brasil” hints at an emotional lightness otherwise imperceptible.

This isn't a singer-songwriter album, Ribot's new record; these are songs built on fragments of poetry, sometimes lifted from the pen of Allen Ginsberg (the sickly, spare blues of “Sometime Jailhouse Blues”), sometimes the fruit of painful experiences that still torment the soul (the delightful “Elizabeth”, dedicated to his late father), always geared toward a dramatic and far from romantic reflection on life's many illusions and deceptions (the aching slowcore of the title track and the understated cynicism of “Death Of A Narcissist”).

It's clear that an album like “Map Of A Blue City” amounts to much more than a simple collection of songs. The cover of a Carter Family song (“When The World's On Fire”) serves to remind us that we've underestimated the climate change alarm, while “For Celia” urges us not to remain indifferent in the face of so many human tragedies (war and racism).

There's no moralistic intent in Marc Ribot's words, though—just a great deal of bitterness, the kind of thinly veiled bitterness found in the album's fullest, most amiable ballad, complete with organ, titled "Say My Name".

It's left to the sole instrumental track to bring down the curtain on "Map Of A Blue City", almost seven minutes of intricate digressions built on electronics, glitch, ambient, jazz and experimental music: the contrast with the rest of the album is stark, yet perfectly consistent with the profile of a musician who has never bowed to the rules of the record business.

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30/05/2025