John B. (Turbid) has sent me a review of the book Tori Amos: Piece By Piece from the March 2005 issue of Blender Magazine in the U.S. It includes one of the color photos from inside the book itself, and a 3-star review. Click to read it.

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Dream Girl
The stormy, piano-straddling songstress puts a New Age spin on the musty rock memoir. By Laura Sinagra.
Tori Amos: Piece By Piece
By Tori Amos and Ann Powers

3-stars
Broadway Books ($24)

Meet Tori Amos: New Age scholar. This autobiographical portait of the artist -- midwifed by rock critic (and Blender contributor) Ann Powers -- is no mere star memoir. With chapters themed for different points on the creation cycle -- inspiration, composition, image, performance -- it's more like a soul-map of Amos's stride from pop tart to poet provocateur.

With the giddiness of stoned grad students, our piano-humping diva and her writer pal log their discussions on Dionysian catharsis, subverting the Dark Prince (read: Trent Reznor) and the erotica of song craft.

Mining legend and lore from French softcore to Aztec ritual, Amos and Powers riff on bad love, good marriage, traumatic pregnancies and eventual motherhood, leaving space to thrash corporate devils, talk shop and go shopping. Selected "song canvasses" unpack the origins of tunes like the Grandpa-tribute "Winter" and honeycomb hideout "The Beekeeper."

Sure, to some this might sound like a masters class at Woo-Woo U. But who else but our resolutely pretentious dervish (and former front-girl of the disavowed Y Kant Tori Read) would give The Da Vinci Code such a Vivid Girl twist -- inviting Mary Magdalene, Carl Jung, Venus and Frodo Naggins to the same muse orgy?