Tom Waits is really productive lately. Two days ago he released a three-CD-set called Orphans: Brawler, Bawlers & Bastards. Here’s the deal: I’ll listen to each song only once and while listening I type down my thoughts. Let’s go.

Lie to Me sounds like a medical experiment in which Elvis’s voice is paired with Waits’s style and your own garage band sound. Great opening, reminds me of Jockey full of Bourbon on Rain Dogs.

Lowdown: solid rock. Sounds like a garage band practicing Ugly Kid Joe songs. First time I heard a “double-bass-drum-fill in” in a Waits song (at about 1:28 min).

2:19: Jam session in a steel mill. Everyone is doing his thing. You really wonder how this works. At times it doesn’t sound like a song and then all of a sudden everything fits together magically well. Just for a second or so…

Fish in the Jailhouse: sounds like someone’s trying out his new mixing software. The song combines minimalist singing (one or two blues licks and a non-sense one-line text) with a sturdy rhythm and lots of extra sounds (metal clangs, bells, sirens). The type of Waits song that is fun to hear once or twice.

Bottom of the World: (click on the title to download song) this is a good, solid song. It has the traditional Waits ingredients. Slow bass, a woven texture of electric guitars, banjos, plastic guitars, and a voice that is somewhere between screaming and failing.

Lucinda: Wonderful accompaniment. It’s very soft in the background. The trick of this tune is that at first you hear only the strange scream on the third beat of each bar. It’s always the same and very prominent. After a while you stop paying attention to it and then, like in an archeological excavation the accompaniment comes out.

Ain’t Goin’ Down to the Well: Is this an improvisation? Shuffle feel. Rhythmic breathing, looped. Nice filler. There should be something more melodious coming up…

Lord I’ve been Changed: Not really. Blues, barber shop style, with humming chorus in the background. A nice guitar played through a miserable amp. Hypnotic guitar accompaniment actually.

Puttin’ on the Dog: This is a great piece of saxophone playing in the background. Just like on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Mysetrious, subversive, drawing away your attention from the rest of the song. I wish I could hear that saxophone better!

Road to Peace: This propably the first political song by Waits. His voice is almost crying, whining, pressed. Great orchestral effects with the electro guitar.

All the time: Starts with breathing drum effects. More and more sounds are added. Waits is singing through a megaphone. Crazy guitar solo and also a sexy harmonica.

The Return of Jackie and Judy: Oh man, he’s really overdoing the garage band style on this one. Doesn’t this man have any nieghbours at all?

Walk away: Sleeky and foreign.

Sea of Love: This is a great song. What a great sound! The marimbas from Underground on Swordfishtrombones are back! The short chorus is very untypical of Tom Waits. It sounds like 80s background music for a movie scene in which the main character is having a drink in a sleazy brothel. (In fact that description sounds a lot like Tom Waits style. I guess it’s the 80s feel that sounds foreign).

Buzz Fledderjohn: I have a feeling that I know this song. It sounds a lot like other Waits songs. That guy seems to be repeating himself quite a bit.

Rains on me: This is exactly the same voice like on I don’t wanna grow up hehehe. And the background chorus is from That feel.

In a nutshell: a couple of nice songs and excting effects, nothing too great, though. There are more “reviews” coming over the next couple of days: still two CDs to go… hang on.