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CAN’T GET ENOUGH: THE CLASSICS AND MORE
TRAX
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Here at last we have all the best work of Liz Torres, who during house music’s 1986–1990 first phase was the voice that mattered. From "Can’t Get Enough" and "Mind Games" to "In the City," "Touch of Love," and "Mama’s Boy," she’s intoxicated, off-key, disheveled, daffy. She turned heads then, and she still stops traffic. Forget the picture-perfect divas, svelte soul queens, and glittery pop stars who provide today’s house-music image: Torres sings with a stutter and a purr, bittersweet and out of synch — a B-movie sort of voice matched only by the smirky drunk who sang Loose Joints’ 1979 cult classic "Is It All Over My Face?" And her vocals are as in your face as they wanna be thanks to the stripped-down music of her producers, Carl Bias and Jesse Jones of Master C & J. Big, deep, loud beats force the issue, even deeper bass rhythms twist the dancer in knots, and eerie synthesizer lines ice the sonic atmosphere, emphasizing the music’s emotional edginess and holding it to its tether. The music pulses and cools, Torres repulses and smolders — and taunts the dancer to join her in her own, very public Idaho.
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