Tom Waits will release Alice and Red Drum, two separate albums, on April 9th. Both albums will be on Anti-/Epitaph, the label that released Waits' Grammy-winning Mule Variations in 1999, ending his seven-album, ten-plus-year run with Island.

The songs from Alice are described as "dark tunes from an adult fairytale," some of which appeared in the Waits/Wilson musical from the early-Nineties. While Mule Variations and Waits' previous studio album, 1992's Bone Machine, drew on Waits' taste for early twentieth century blues, Alice eschews amped guitars for organic instrumentation including pianos, vibes, cellos and the Stroh violin, a Romanian dance instrument that fuses the violin with a horn.

Red Drum was inspired by Woyzeck, a disturbing play of schizophrenia and murder by nineteenth-century German playwright, Georg Buchner. The resulting album is described as "Tin Pan Alley meets Weimar Republic" with lullabies, tarantellas and waltzes.

"I guess I'm drawn to the carnival," Waits said of his attraction to the play. "I went and watched Strangers on the Train to get some inspiration. It's so impressionistic, but it does draw from life. But yeah, it's got that circus thing, the waltzes and such."

ANDREW DANSBY
(November 2, 2001)