Lorraine Feather: Flirting With Disaster

Across 10 previous albums, you could count on Lorraine Feather to be funny, sardonic, wisely observant of the minutiae of everyday life and, occasionally, wistful and romantic. Now, for the first time in her colorful recording career, Feather is focusing exclusively on love songs-all originals (of course), her lyrics paired with music by pianists Shelly Berg, Russell Ferrante and Dave Grusin and guitarist Eddie Arkin, all of whom also contribute arrangements for their respective compositions and play on various tracks. In the liner notes, Feather says the title derives from her belief that “any time you fall in love, you’re flirting with disaster.”

While Feather is indeed taking a full-length sojourn along lovers’ lane, with all the twists and turns that Cupid’s course inevitably demands, she still checks all her requisite lyrical boxes: funny, sardonic, wise and occasionally wistful. She opens with the title track, written with Arkin. It is the “Dueling Banjos” of love songs, urgently leading to the edge of a romantic precipice, the leap dangerously thrilling. From there it is, like love, a wildly unpredictable journey, pinging from the beatific satisfaction of “Feels Like Snow” and nostalgia-tinged longing of “Disastrous Consequences” to the primal urges of “Be My Muse” and the bossa-fueled arc of “Wait for It.” Cleverest is the undulating patter of “I’d Be Down With That,” a rollercoaster ride through a fantasized relationship. Coziest is the closer, her and Berg’s “The Staircase.”