Cecil Seaskull
Whoever
Teenage USA Records

Cecil Seaskull, formerly Nerdy Girl, is renowned for her high, childlike voice, vengeful lyrics and melancholy songs. This, her latest disc on Toronto's new label Teenage USA is no exception to the usual Nerdy Girl stereotype. Cecil sings to us about crushes and love, and she sings to us as though she is telling us off for all our faults.

The arrangements are simple and sparing, almost hollow on this record, with some vocal backup including an excerpt from La Vie en Rose by Rufus Wainwright on La Song and some trumpet on 2e and a haunting thudding drum on Dim. Despite all of this, Whoever has some distinctly more lively and poppy moments. True Love is a track that describes the indie-rawk groupie, and I'm not sure if it's a confession or a celebration of the shallowness of rock-star ogling, but either way, it's a fun and much more upbeat track than Cecil usually does. She shows her excellent charming, frank and harsh attitude in the final track Sweet Girl that is creatively motifed with honking guitars, interesting noises and in-your-face rhythms and vocals.

Cecil did an excellent job with this record, it's got a variety of stuff and it's tempered with the intimacy and anger that makes Nerdy Girl so appealing. Cecil is having a record-release party for this record in Toronto on Nov. 12th with Bill Priddle and Lonnie James.

You can get the disc from Teenage USA Records 689 Queen St. W. Box 91 Toronto ON Canada M6J 1E6

Copyright © 1998 Laura Bowman