Hang On Little Tomato

Re released in the UK after many years and due to huge popular demand on 180g vinyl Hang On Little Tomato – a title inspired by a 1964 ketchup ad in Life Magazine, depicting a single tomato clinging to a vine – the result of Pink Martini’s diverse collaborations and inspirations. The celestial anthem ‘Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love’ – strings courtesy of an orchestra from Lauderdale’s old high school – nestles next to a dance sequence from the 1950 Italian film, Anna. The reworked Japanese track ‘Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu’ – recorded in Japan with Hiroshi Wada, the song’s original slide guitarist – sits happily alongside the Brazilian composer Hector Villa-Lobos’s ‘Song of the Black Swan’ and ‘U Plavu Zoru’, a Croatian number co-written with Lauderdale’s nextdoor neighbour, Mario Lalich. There are torch songs, instrumentals, lyrics of poetic beauty. The mood is playful but never, ever kitsch.