JONI MITCHELL Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Asylum)

Why a double studio album and why such a short one (not quite an hour long)? The intention is not at all clear. Although there is an overture, there is no connecting motif, only the ones that have occupied Joni ever since she began recording —one-sided love, irony, the poetry of sensuality, elliptical biography. It's become a cliche but once again it's true—this is a double album that would have made an excellent single album.

So short and still there's plenty of filler, most notably on what probably was intended to be the album's magnum opus, "Paprika Plains," which sprawls over the entire second side (16 min.), unredeemingly plain. After a brief lyric which would fall into the category of "elliptical biography," the song becomes an extended and turgid therenody for piano and orchestra, reminiscent of so many Third Stream exercises only without the saving experimental grace of improvisation (that's a guess—I have no information on how "Plains" was put together—but if the piano part is partly improvised, then it's an obtuse spontaneity and all the more lamentable). Can Joni Mitchell create an extended composition that sustains the emotional urgency of her shorter pieces? Maybe, but she hasn't yet.

Elsewhere on the album there's much to enjoy. "Talk To Me" makes perfect use of Joni's eccentric phrasing to convey the freneticism of someone who becomes a compulsive talker when confronted with a silent "Mr. Mystery," rambling off subjects they could talk about, pleading, cajoling, finally reproachful and direct: "You spend every sentence as if it were marked currency/Come and spend some on me." "Dreamland" tries to embrace some kind of Third World consciousness (as does "Otis and Marlena" with its portrayal of affluent complacency punctuated with the recurring refrain "While Muslims stick up Washington") but its seductive Latin beat and hypnotic v beckoning to a warm dreamland are overwhelming. It makes you want to buy the myth and later for the politics. "The Silky Veils Of Ardor" is notable for harboring a relatively simple love longing song behind its atrocious title.

The album isn't any kind of step forward—it's a flawed consolidation of Joni Mitchell's lyric and musical abilities. Lyrically she rarely stumbles, passion informed by intelligence and wit, best exemplified by the title song, marvelously complex but never distant from the immediate emotion. Musically she prefers repetitive riffing which gives her the freedom to phrase and color her words as she pleases —tho occasionally she'll write a long non-repetitive melodic line ("Cotton Avenue," "Paprika Plains"). Both approaches go back to her folk origins (cf. early Dylan— he couldn't write a decent melody, either). The predominant instrumentation here is acoustic guitar and a loud but economical electric bass. But musically, there's too much self-indulgence (the "Overture," "Plains," "The Tenth World," an endless percussion jam) and not enough substance to merit this being a double album. That was a reckless move.