Forget, for a moment, that Rufus Wainwright dressed up as Verdi for the Manchester debut of his French-language opera, Prima Donna, last year. Set aside, too, the image of Wainwright impersonating Judy Garland during the gala performances of her songs he began in 2006. While Wainwright's most recent albums – Wants One and Two, 2007's Release the Stars – pursued Wainwright's maximalist tendencies with the most opulent of orchestrations, the son of folk A-listers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle is probably most affecting when he has little adornment.
All Days Are Nights is the simple piano-and-voice album Wainwright has been talking about since the run-up to Release the Stars. The showy Marius De Vries has been ousted as resident producer; Pierre Marchand – who produced most of Wainwright's extraordinary second album, Poses – lends a hand instead.
Wainwright's works never lack for emotion or candour. Few artists air their dirty family linen more exuberantly than the extended Wainwright clan. This quiet record is imbued with the illness and recent passing of Wainwright's mother from cancer. Rufus, Martha, Kate'n'Anna McGarrigle and Loudon fans could be forgiven for feeling enmeshed in their family drama; certainly, we can recognise our own intimate relations in theirs. "Martha" – an extended answering machine message for Rufus's almost-as-famous sister – finds Wainwright worrying about his parents, as 36-year-olds do. "There's not much time for us to be that angry at each other any more," croons the man who lashed out at his father in "Dinner at Eight" all those years ago. It's lungs against hands this time, as Wainwright's windpipe and digits egg each other on. The closing, crowning track, "Zebulon", finds Wainwright wandering home from his mother's hospital bed to his flat in Montreal, numb and wondering.
Where All Days Are Nights departs from vignette and confession, it can seem like a bit more of a grab-bag. Wainwright sets three Shakespearean sonnets to music, a project originally staged in Berlin, where he lives part-time. The oblique opening track, "Who Are You New York?", was originally written for a film score but not used. "Les Feux D'Artifice T'Appellent" comes from Prima Donna and was sung at Kate's funeral. What unites these disparate elements are the themes of piano and voice, love and the fear of loss. If it is a grab-bag, it is a very deep one.
