Woman Childs

Toni Childs doesn't much like my suggestion that her new album -- recorded in part at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, produced by Gabriel knobman David Botrill and featuring a guest appearance by the shocked monkey himself -- resembles, well, the sort of music Mr. Gabriel might make if he were a woman instead of a paunchy old man. "If you'd listened to my earlier work," she scolds, "you wouldn't say that." Suggesting, I suppose, that the Childs sound came first.

Whatever. The product at hand is The Woman's Boat (DGC) -- an 11-song cycle that moves, cleverly enough, from the opener "Womb" to the closer "Death" and resembles nothing so much as vintage Gabriel in its luxurious texture and willingness to address seemingly unambiguous topics such as birth, marriage and the big kick with a mystic's eye. Hell, the Gabriel thing was never supposed to be an insult anyway.

The Woman's Boat is a concept album, though Childs says she's scared to come out and call a spade a spade. "I didn't know, but I found out recently, that there was a run of concept records in the '70s that curled the record companies' hair." It's a fair fear, but Childs' concept is so basic -- "All of us came in on the woman's boat" -- and so receptive to her idiosyncratic interpretation, that the "concept" structure hangs loose, making for a record filled with plenty of emotional breathing room. It doesn't hurt that Childs' gritty, cigarette-forged voice is one of the most distinctive in modern music. Let Kate Bush wail, let Tori Amos squeal, let P.J. Harvey claw your belly -- Childs' pipes carry a distinctly pained and penetrating authority. And you don't have to be a woman to sink into the world-music tapestry she weaves from cutting-edge technology and African instrumentation, though it does help to have been born.

Houston is the second scheduled stop on Childs' present tour, and she says that she and her five-piece touring band will present material from the new album, plus older songs, without benefit of the sort of sophisticated visual imagery the songs seem to beg for. That, of course, is all right, since Gabriel already has that turf covered. What we're likely to see and hear instead is music both majestic and intimate, in a room small enough to amplify both qualities.

-- Brad Tyer

Toni Childs performs two shows, at 7 and 9:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 29 at Rockefeller's, 3620 Washington, 861-9365. $11.50, $13.50 and $17.50. Call 629-3700 for tickets.