Torres - What An Enormous Room [CD]

What an enormous room is not only the title of the album by Torres, it is an incantation, a phrase she has had in her head now for several years. In the video for What an enormous room's debut single "Collect," Scott finds herself alone in rooms that stretch beyond the frame of the camera. You can observe details of the rooms-the rubble and support beams in one, the lighting in the other-but they neither define their purpose nor explain her presence in them; these are large spaces whose lack of definition invites anxiety and even fear. What does Scott do when cast against that kind of uncertainty? She dances. She throws herself against it. When she sings "look at all the dancing I can do," it's an invitation to awe, and there is much here to be awed by. What an enormous room contains wry, Laurie Anderson-esque art rock, Nirvana's rage, and ABBA's strut. Rather than fear the unknown, Scott has chosen to fill it with as much of herself as possible, an artist unwilling to be stifled.