Someone Will Take Care of Me (2010)
Corey Dargel is joined by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), pianist Kathleen Supové, and drummer David T. Little on the art-pop double-CD album Someone Will Take Care of Me. The album contains unconventional love songs from Dargel’s two acclaimed music-theater pieces about hypochondria and voluntary amputation — Thirteen Near-Death Experiences and Removable Parts. Dargel uses a mix of witty lyrics, humor and compassion to create quirky love songs that earnestly celebrate the ways in which abnormal behavior leads to more diverse interactions with the world, new approaches to creativity, and unconventional definitions of sanity.
Here are places to preview and purchase the album:
New Amsterdam Records (physical CDs & high-quality Lossless download. Ordering physical CDs gives you immediate access to downloads, but you can also purchase only the downloads.)- The album is distributed by Naxos of America and is in stock at many record stores in the U.S.. Check with your local independent record store.
- Naxos Direct (physical CDs only)
- eMusic.com (download only)
(download only, includes an exclusive bonus remix by Seth Gordon and an exclusive iTunes digital booklet)- Amazon (physical CDs and mp3 download)
Here’s what the critics are saying:
“Intimate, witty, and often kinda creepy, Corey Dargel’s songs strike an uneasy balance between art and pop. Using some top-shelf musicians from New York’s contemporary music scene and singing in a pop style (usually multitracked), Dargel spins quirky, lyrical tales of dysfunction and delusion…Imagine Franz Schubert composing a song cycle about hypochondria after listening to AM radio Top 40 and studying Thelonius Monk…” –eMusic Editor’s Pick, review by John Schaefer
“These recordings are wonderful… [s]ongs about love as something to enthrall and survive, as an unavoidable illness, songs in the voices of people who, despite their deficits, love and want to be loved. If that sounds too much like the bathos of Morrissey, Dargel has so much more charm and wit, as well as an effortless touch.” – The Big City
“[T]his album, like all things of true beauty, teeters on the brink of madness.” – The Indie Handbook
“These songs are peopled by twelve-year-old alcoholics; a Ritalin-stunted child who feels no emotions; a man longing for castration… I saw [Corey Dargel] perform selections from this album the other night, and was impressed with the balancing act he pulled off; he was playful, but never tipped completely over into mean-spiritedness; he was empathetic, but not manipulative; he made people uncomfortable, but didn’t seem interested in empty provocation.” -Jayson Greene at 17dots
“Dargel’s pop-song trappings are a façade that lulls you into a false sense of security as a listener; before you know it, you’re bopping your head to a very complex series of beats, humming a melody that doesn’t quite line up with those beats, and thinking about the world in a way that you most likely would never have thought about it before …[W]ith Removable Parts and Thirteen Near Death Experiences, Dargel is doing much more than writing extremely well-crafted songs. He is creating larger arcs of meaning, both musically and lyrically.” -Frank J. Oteri, New Music Box
“a brilliant collection” – WNYC’s New Sounds
“The songs are terrific.” – Huffington Post
“Dargel’s [voice] is well-suited to the songs, which in some ways could be heard melodically as fairly conventional, but whose accompaniments… are wittily skewed enough to situate this music in the realm of the very odd… In spite of its veneer of simplicity, Dargel’s music has a sophistication that should give it strong appeal for fans of the intersection between experimental rock and classical.” -Stephen Eddins, All Music Guide
“Dargel’s songs are wryly witty and often hilarious, crafted with a charming, angular lyricism, the deft lyrics recalling the best work of Warren Zevon and Randy Newman… What lifts these songs from merely comic throwaways is their graceful charm, mixing a lyric delicacy with an unsettled rhythmic line that reflects the hypochondriac’s nervous tension… Dargel’s scoring for sextet shows great skill and ingenuity.” – Chicago Classical Review on Thirteen Near-Death Experiences
And here’s what Corey Dargel is saying:
Interview on KALW’s (San Francisco) “Then and Now” with Sarah Cahill
Interview on WFMT’s (Chicago) Critical Thinking with Andrew Patner
Corey Dargel
Someone Will Take Care of Me
Thirteen Near-Death Experiences (cd 1)
01. Touch Me Where It Counts
02. Twelve-Year-Old Scotch
03. Ritalin
04. Deep Down Inside
05. What Will It Be for Me
06. Everybody Says I’m Beautiful
07. Interlude
08. Impotent Teeth
09. Someone Else’s Pain
10. There Is No Cure
11. Sometimes a Migraine Is Just a Migraine
12. Every Time You Undress Me
13. Someone Will Take Care of Me
Removable Parts (cd 2)
01. Hooked for Life
02. Why Not Take All
03. Fully Functional
04. Toes
05. Fingers
06. Hands
07. Sincerely Yours
08. Castration
09. Brain
10. Everybody Wannabe
Performance Credits:
Corey Dargel, vocals (Thirteen Near-Death Experiences)
International Contemporary Ensemble (Thirteen Near-Death Experiences)
Eric Lamb, flutes
Joshua Rubin, clarinets
Jacob Greenberg, piano
David Bowlin, violin
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello
David T. Little, drum set and percussion (Thirteen Near-Death Experiences)
Corey Dargel, vocals and synths (Removable Parts)
Kathleen Supové, piano (Removable Parts)
Production Credits:
recorded by Ryan Streber at Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA; and Oktaven Audio, Yonkers, NY;
Mastered by Bailey Math and Mike Rugnetta at Terminator Smile, Brooklyn, NY
photos by Luke Batten and Jonathan Sadler of New Catalogue;
design by Yvan Greenberg
