Julia Fordham & Paul Reiser - Unusual Suspects

If you're a professional creative type, one of the benefits of living in a city like Los Angeles is meeting other professional creative types, something that has played out rather nicely with the friendship of Brit-born songbird Julia Fordham and actor/comedian Paul Reiser, best known for his starring role in the venerable 90's sitcom "Mad About You". The two friends and mutual admirers have now paired up professionally with Unusual Suspects, an album that features Reiser's piano and music -- he was a music composition major in college -- along with Fordham's lyrics and a voice Reiser says has knocked him out with its "phenomenal range" and "emotional honesty". The new project, arriving November 9, may be a sidestep for Fordham but it can also be viewed as a logical move given her penchant for sumptuous adult pop and vocal jazz renderings.

Despite the pair's outwardly upbeat personalities and easy, witty banter, Suspects exhibits it's fair share of melancholy -- "surprisingly heavy stuff", says Reiser -- most notably on the album's lead track Unsung Hero, an emotional song of war's effects that teeters near the edge of teary sentimentality (singing children = a no-no in our book). Still, on tracks such as the enticing "Fine" the creative chemistry works, well, just fine, with Fordham's lilting, lark-like soprano the high-flying foil for Reiser's sweeping songcraft and dense Peter Gabriel-styled production. "I would hand her a piece of music. She would make it her own and come back with lyrics," remarks Reiser with a grin. "Almost always, it was a complete surprise. I would hand her a little melody and it would come back a painful, horrible childhood memory. I would be like, 'All right ...' "

Julia Fordham (w/ Paul Reiser) - "Fine" (from the album Unusual Suspects)

(Free Download at the Julia Fordham site)

Julia Fordham (w/ Paul Reiser) - "Unsung Hero" (from the album Unusual Suspects)