k.d. lang

Katherine Dawn Lang’s “post-nuclear cabaret” smash, 25 years on.

Ingénue is where the lang truly ascended, promoting torch over twang, lost in unrequited love without ever careering intro trauma. Actually, Constant Craving sounds like lang’s happy to crave without consummation. Carried by Miss Chatelaine’s salsa/ tango lilt, lang meets her would-be paramour’s eyes, and “clouds of qualm burst into sunshine”. Such a wistful, giddy spin on romance is still unusual. The production (with lang) by co-writers Ben Mink and Greg Penny is as pitchperfect and golden as her voice; strings wrap and flutter like moths to her flame. This bonus disc in this remastered edition, of eight previously unreleased and immaculately performed Ingénue songs from 1993’s MTV Unplugged, can only be faulted by the inexplicable omission of an imperious cover of Orbison’s Crying, which lang was, and still is, good enough to also make her own. Martin Aston