#a:absolute torch and twang

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k.d. on the cover of Absolute Torch and Twang. She's said that this was the first time she wore her own everyday clothes on the cover of an album. Having let go of some of the zanier, cowpunk elements of her style and sound, she wanted to appear very genuinely herself for this album.

[kdlangarchive-blog]

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I'm smitten right now with this photo (scanned from Bay Area Music, June 1989, a newsprint publication).

"I really just react to what's going on in my life," lang says, attempting to explain her look. . . Shrugging off comments like, "Why doesn't she look more like a girl?" and "Isn't that really a young John Lennon on the cover of Shadowland?", lang remains a likeable maverick with one of the sweetest smiles and the warmest eyes this side of Holly Hunter. "Now," k.d. admits, "I'm not sure what I'm going to wear or look like on this tour."

-k.d. at the start of her Absolute Torch and Twang tour 

[kdlangarchive-blog]

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If the cover photo for Absolute Torch and Twang was real-life, contemporary 'farm boy' k.d., then the inside album art was her fantasy, old-school country western cowboy counterpart. 

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Promotional images for Absolute Torch and Twang.

In their review of the 1989 album, the Nashville Banner said k.d. had given "country music a tornado of a whirl that could send a few rhinestones flying into the 21st century."

[kdlangarchive-blog]

"Nowhere to Stand" from the album Absolute Torch and Twang performed live in 1990. The quality of this video isn't great but it's still a beautiful and rare acoustic performance of this song.

In "Nowhere to Stand," a song about child abuse, Lang takes what would be a reverential catch phrase in most country songwriting--"a family tradition, the strength of this land"--and twists it around to deeply ironic effect. By labeling child-battering "a family tradition, the strength of this land," Lang obliquely calls into question the sentimental, uncritical attitude that runs through much of the Nashville establishment when it comes to the portrayal of traditional values. From that conservative viewpoint, such buzzwords as "family," "tradition" and "strength of this land" would represent something inviolable. But Lang's song makes the point that a tradition such as unchallenged parental authority can foster evil from generation to generation.

-Mike Boehm, LA Times, 1989

[kdlangarchive-blog]

k.d. in a fun performance of "Big Big Love" for Center Stage in 1993. It's only fair to warn you: in some parts of this video, the camera angle and costume situation are a little provocative. There. You've been warned. *ahem* This song was included on Absolute Torch and Twang.