Album Review: Release Me by Barbra Streisand

In the liner notes to this collection of previously unreleased material, co-producer Jay Landers paints a picture of the Barbra Streisand vault, where hundreds of boxes -- ranging from '60s acetates to '90s 48-track tapes to Pro Tools "cases" -- apparently sit waiting for their first issue. It's curious, then, that Release Me only includes 11 songs. Chalk it up perhaps to Streisand's heavy hand on the controls of her career, which never lets a song spring forth until its impact has been studied and predicted.

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The famously meticulous star chose well for this excellent collection of from-the-vault tracks. Dating as far back as 1967, the songs here showcase her goose-bump-inducing vocals and endearing interstitial banter. ”Home” and ”How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” will thrill fans of The Broadway Album, and ”I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” is flawless.

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In her mind she holds the whole thing, the song and its nuances. She sees where each syllable will fall in her voice, whose contours and abilities she knows more intimately than she knows her lover, maybe more intimately than she knows herself. She anticipates how she’ll modulate the flow of air to produce the specific timbre she’ll deploy for the word “youuuuuu,” the exact rate of vibrato for that note, how she’ll climb from there to the phrase “start anew” and its falling transformation into the next phrase, the “ooo” of “anew” eliding into “I’ll solve the mysteries ..

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