You may think you don't know Wendy and Lisa, but you've definitely heard them. As resident keyboardist (Lisa Coleman) and guitarist (Wendy Melvoin) in Prince's Revolution, they helped define both his sound and persona at his heyday, adding the only truly gay element to his apparently omnisexual universe. They left the purple fold in 1986 for their own pop career. It never fully launched -- they wanted to make pop-rock-funk music in a pre-Lilith Fair world where record labels were more interested in them as scantily clad "Prince women" than as real musicians.
But if labels weren't biting, plenty of artists were -- over the last 20 years, together or independently, Wendy and Lisa played on, composed, and/or produced songs and records for Sheryl Crow, Gwen Stefani, Seal, Madonna, Joni Mitchell, OK Go, Lucinda Williams, Neil Finn, Lisa Germano, Me'shell Ndegeocello, Robb Thomas, Grace Jones and others. Their day job is as composers of the score for NBC's Heroes, with plans to release a score on CD in the spring.
White Flags of Winter Chimneys is their first album in 10 years -- their last outing was 1998's Girl Bros., an elegiac tribute to both the death of Wendy's brother Jonathon and the end of their own romantic relationship. White Flags is loaded with Lisa's melodic piano and Wendy's steely guitar, shifting from dreamy ballads to uptempo pop and rock numbers with ease, sometimes within the same song. Their lyrics reflect a maturity and vitality of two women secure in their lives and settled into some sort of rock 'n' roll domesticity -- Lisa married her longtime girlfriend in October and Wendy's longtime partner is film director Lisa Cholodenko.
"What you believe in is what I fear," Wendy sings in the rocking "Invisible," possibly an open letter to "the purple Republican," as Lisa called Prince after he shared his religious views with the New Yorker. The standout track is the nine-minute closer "Sweet Suite (Beginning at the End)," which opens as a simple piano track to segue into a reprise of the opener "Balloon" before exploding into a lush orchestration reminiscent of the end credits of a Hollywood tearjerker.
When all is said and done, Wendy and Lisa stand head and shoulders above their former boss Prince (I'm trying to resist the short joke here) and prove they are capable of maintaining a signature sound without sounding dated. White Flags of Winter Chimneys is available exclusively at wendyandlisa.com.
-- CHRIS AGUILAR GARCIA
OMG I'm such a huge fan of the show Heroes I looked Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. I found out that they had just released a new album called "White Flags of Winter Chimneys" so I took a chance and ordered it. It's brilliant!!! If you are craving some real music look no further, thanks for this article!
Posted by: Chloe Doss | December 14, 2008 at 02:43 PM
Ordered the CD and was delighted at what I heard. A wonderfully refreshing sound that is NOT heard in todays music. If you love REAL and HONEST music from a couple of great gurls, pick up "White Flags of Winter Chimneys"....Its Smokin!!!
Posted by: Jennifer | December 14, 2008 at 06:10 PM