As previously reported, guitarist Jennifer Batten, who rose to fame as Michael Jackson's big-haired blonde axe mistress, will release her new album, Whatever, through Lion Music on April 18th. She has issued a track-by-track overview of the album, found below:

'Ass Whoopin' - "A hip hop track featuring the other guitarist (Jon Clark) on Michael Jackson's Bad Tour, using a comedic spoken word character that he often used in 1988 during the tour I was on with him. He tells a story of the frustrations of buying electronics in the modern age. For the second solo I trigger an organ sound with the guitar synth which came out very jazz flavoured just due to the sound I used. The melody is very bendy and snakey."

'Ricochet' - "An experimental soundscape starting with distorted drums and a multitude of guitar sounds, techniques, and textures. It's a quirky love song."

'Off The Deep End' - "A very African influenced flavor with a vocal chant from a tribe of little kids in the intro. It's a mix of tribal groove and dreamy breathy synth with Andre Berry's 'Jaco-esque' bass feel. The breakdown goes into a story spoken by Debbie Schepp (I'm a sucker for the British accent). I purposely left the story a little vague so the listener could imagine any of a variety of situations that she was describing."

'Whatever' - "Brings the record back to Los Angeles and gives a pathetic tribute to the cultural degradation in the language of the modern youth. They use the word 'whatever' to replace most words in the language, due to laziness. The song makes use of various samples of people and accents saying "whatever". The focus is on total nonsense surrounded by melody and a whacky guitar solo."

'Fearless' - "My first endeavour back to the acoustic guitar after many years exclusively with electric only. The guitar is in an odd tuning and I have no idea what any of the notes are. It was just written from sound, which is very freeing."

'Hooligan's Holiday' - "A lyric-less conversation between the guitar and the vocal riffs from the singer. It's a sonic experiment starting with samples of the horrible ground buzz I was having in the studio at the time. I decided to just use the noise and make it musical and percussive in the intro rather than just give up until I could get an engineer in to fix it."

'In The Aftermath' - "The CDs compositional highlight for me and the first ballad I've written. It feels like a spiritual adventure that takes you on a sensual journey."

'Run With It' - "Focused on samples from Herman Begay, a native American singer. It begins with native flute and also blends instruments from East Indians as well."

'Cupid's Arrow' - "The story of my best friend getting married while I was on tour. I sampled his story of the wedding after my return and used the best bits for this love story. There are lots of quirky sounds with a surprise ending."

'Inner Journey' - "May well be the launching pad for this record. The percussion is based on body noise samples. This is the comedic highlight of the CD with a whacky video to match. Though the title 'Inner Journey' sounds like a spiritual endeavour, it's more like the inner journey your body takes in digestion. Most female recording artists use body parts to promote their music, which has been done to death, and I find that’s quite lacking in imagination! I prefer a more creative shocking attention grabbing angle."

Bio Information:

Rising from the guitar underground in the late 1980's Jennifer Batten is arguably the most visible female guitarist on the scene today. Setting her apart from her peers at the beginning of her career was her absolute mastery of the two handed tapping style made popular by Eddie Van Halen. The guitar press began championing her from the start and she ended up writing an instructional column for Guitar Player magazine and appearing on Guitar For The Practicing Musician's first compilation CD. In 1987 she received her biggest break. Hand picked out of a pool of over 100 guitarists, Jennifer was tapped to be the featured guitarist in Michael Jackson's touring band. Jennifer toured the world several times over with Mr. Jackson playing to over 4.5 million people. She appeared with Jackson on the halftime show of Super Bowl 27 which was viewed by 1.5 billion people, the largest television audience in history. Respect from her peers continued to grow. In 1998 Jennifer was asked by none other than Jeff Beck to join her HIS touring band. She appeared on Beck’s releases Who Else, and You Had It Coming contributing song ideas, guitar and guitar synthesizer. As part of Jeff Beck's band she toured Europe, Japan, South America and twice in the United States.

Jeff Beck & Jennifer Batten (live) - 'Blue Wind'