Jennifer Terran doesn't do a lot of things halfway. This is a woman who spent two months sleeping on friends' couches when she was between homes, waiting for the right space to appear. She hadn't found it yet, but she knew she would, kept focused on her vision and refused to compromise. Eventually she heard about a perfect house while standing at the counter at Cantwell's Market on State Street.

Or consider how we got together to talk about her new album, "Cruel," the singer-songwriter-pianist's solo debut, an incredibly complex and heady document that exudes confidence while challenging boundaries. Instead of meeting at the usual coffeespots, Terran invites me to her Mission-area home with a promise of better coffee. "I have the most awesome cappuccino machine," she says. "And I only use heavy cream."In these days of watching what you eat?"You don't put in the nonfat milk," explains Terran. "No no no no. Or even half-and-half. You put in the heavey whipping cream. If you're going to do something, you do it all the way."

Terran has exhibited a similar commitment to her art dating back to childhood. Her father, Tony, is a trumpeter, a session man whose credits include the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life," Frank Zappa albums and the music for the "Brady Bunch" television series. Adel, her mom, was a singer and dancer and Jennifer has been singing for as long as she can remember.

"I've always known it was what I wanted to do, " she says. So she sang in choirs and talent shows and a couple rock 'n' roll bands, while also teaching others hip-hop dance, piano and singing - with a different approach, of course. "There shouldn't be a lot of rules around the creation of music," she says. "Theory and technical aspects should be secondary to creativity, exploration and expression. It's important to make your own discoveries."

It was when Terran started writing songs herself five years ago after taking a musical hiatus to attend UCSB, that she discovered a plethora of unresolved feelings and emotions. Most of them stemmed from her mother's death from leukemia at 41, which provides the loose theme for "Cruel," both in song and in the haunting, artful CD cover photograph.

"The first thing that happened was that image," Terran says. "She died at an age when she didn't have a chance to pull it all together. She was still dealing with how to love herself and how to deal with expectations the world put on her as a woman. I wanted to empower her."

The journey found Terran exploring her family dynamics, re-examining the roots of her patterns and thoughts. The results were often disconcerting. "I realized in growing up there were themes in my family, especially my grandmother's generation, that there were some things you just didn't talk about," Terran says. "Not revealing the truth created a lot of pain. I wanted to expose the truth. It's up to the next generation to make the changes (my mother) wasn't able to make." So on "Cruel", Terran delves deeply into her own psyche, revealing with shameless honesty her motivations, obsessions and passions. It's all there for the world to hear, Terran's truths about getting money from Dad, masturbation, loss, self-image, the cruelty in love/hate relationships and the creative process itself.

The result is a disturbing intensely personal record, one that is difficult and challenging yet eminently accessible.The album is spare in its arrangement - on most tracks Terran either plays solo or accompanied only by the elegant double bass playing of Brendan Statom, her boyfriend and a member of the "Transylvania Mountain Boys." But melodies are abundant, soaring whenever Terran wishes to indicate periods of triumph or renewal. There are even a few moments of levity, particularly on "Trader Joe's," in which Terran positions the grocery store as the great human equalizer, a place where all are welcome to the Epicurean bargains.

"My music is intense and heavy and humorous and absurd," Terran says. "I tend to extremes to achieve balance."

But the single most frequent element on "Cruel" is dissonance, as Terran alters chords or combinations of notes to achieve a frequently jarring but never unpleasant effect that's appropriate to the record's overall theme.

"Dissonance is beautiful," Terran says simply. "Playing with expectations, exploring, changing the stereotypes - that's what it means to be a musician."

Terran's vocal range and approach have led some to compare her work with Tori Amos, a reference point Terran rejects out of hand, although she understands the human need to define and relate newcomers to something that's familiar. "When she came out I said, 'Damn, she's female, she plays piano, she sings and (her subjects are) somewhat personal. People are going to make that connection.' But I was who I am long before I ever heard her. Besides," Terran continues, "musical influences are the last thing that have influenced my music. It's more my life experiences. In fact I often use other musicians to show me what I don't want to do."

Terran recorded "Cruel" over an 18-month period (except for one track recorded in 1991 with an earlier band, Puppet Show) at various studios in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. She arranged and produced with help from Julie Last, who worked on Joni Mitchell's "Turbulent Indigo" and Ricki Lee Jones' "Traffic From Paradise." Last volunteered her time after hearing Terran sing. Although it's been released on her own Grizelda Records/ Houshold Ink imprint, it shouldn't be considered a 'local record,' Terran says. "I live in Santa Barbara and I don't have distribution yet, so you'll find it in the local bins at the record store, but that's not the intent," she says.

Neither is Terran content to sign with the first major label to come calling. "I'm not looking for a deal," she says. "I want to work with people who have agendas that are about music and art, not money. That's why I had to make this without a record company so there wouldn't be any restrictions regarding whether it was commercial. I wanted to establish that the power is in the music and to show them how I wanted it carried out."

By the same token, Terran's CD release concert isn't the usual excuse for a party. She's not counting the numbers of the local music glitteratti who show up. In fact, she has already talked with the folks at Soho to ensure quiet during her performance. "There's a big social aspect to going out and seeing bands here, which is why there really isn't a venue that's suitable for my music," Terran says. "So I'd rather play once a year and have a quality concert than to be where people are socializing the whole time."

So in other words, you won't be hearing capuccino machines- heavy whipping cream or non-fat milk- whirring during the show."God, I hope not," says Terran.

By Steve Libowitz
Scene Magazine