2023 Marks forty years since Tom Waits releasedSwordfishtrombones,ushering in a new and critically acclaimed musical era for Waits and his longtime songwriting and production partner, Brennan.Waits went from 70s-era bluesy, boozy wordsmith and melodist with seven albums behind him to sound sculptor, miner of the subconscious, abstract orchestrator, sonic cubistwhile retaining his innate lyricism, melodic invention, humanity. As he put it in a 1983 interview: I tried to listen to the noise in my head and invent some junkyard orchestral deviationa mutant apparatus to drive this noise into a wreck collection. Its a Waits-arranged pastiche, a variety of atmospheres from different sound planets. There is the warped, marching-army-ants music of Underground, an impressionist chant about people living below cities, but there was also the poignancy of the spare piano ballad, Soldiers Thing