One-time Smog collaborator Sarabeth Tucek returns after a decade away with a double album that works best when it’s spiky, In a year of auspicious comebacks, the return of American singer songwriter Sarabeth Tucek – now operating as SBT – was an easy one to miss. But the first album in 12 years from the former Bill Callahan backing vocalist and Bob Dylan support act was a stealth classic. Tucek’s a Los Angeles resident, but it was her Manhattan, New York upbringing that often informed the epiphanies of double album “Joan Of All”, its skinny, grimy chugs indebted to Lou Reed.
“Joan of All” is more exciting when SBT leans into weirdness. “13th Street #1” recalls her best work, spiky narrative cadence sparking against taut, Lou Reed rock, made explicit by lyrics about listening to his Coney Island Baby. Shame it isn’t joined by alternate version “13th Street #2”, as the album would be stronger with more of Reed’s gimlet-eyed relentlessness.
Sarabeth Tucek emerges from a decade-long hibernation with this new double-album “Joan of All” under the new moniker SBT – a longtime nickname given to her by the many musicians she has worked with throughout her career. After retreating from the fevered pace of the record business to concentrate on other creative endeavors, Sarabeth began to piece together the music that would eventually become her most ambitious, personal project yet – the sprawling double-album “Joan Of All”, via her own freshly-minted imprint Ocean Omen.
Sarabeth Tucek officially broke onto the music scene 2003 performing a series of spellbinding duets with Bill Callahan on the acclaimed Smog album “Supper”. This was swiftly followed by a memorable appearance in the prize-winning Brian Jonestown Massacre documentary DiG! Sarabeth also contributed material to their 2005 EP release, “We Are the Radio”. One of Sarabeth’s compositions covered by the band on that EP, “Seer,” would later be retitled and released in 2006 as Tucek’s debut single, “Something for You”, which became Steve Lamacq’s Single Of The Week on BBC Radio 6 Music.
Her self-titled debut album produced by Luther Russell and Ethan Johns hit stores the following year and garnered rave reviews in the press, leading her to supporting Bob Dylan and unfaltering support at the BBC. In 2011, Sarabeth followed up her extraordinary debut with a raw, uncompromising album entitled “Get Well Soon”, praised as an unflinching meditation on the subject of grief.
The Fat Angel Sings 