Fifteen years ago, New Amsterdam Records released Someone Will Take Care of Me, by Corey Dargel. The double CD is a “brilliant collection” (WNYC) comprised of song cycles adapted from Dargel’s acclaimed music-theater pieces, Thirteen Near-Death Experiences and Removable Parts. The cycles explore the hypochondria and amputation respective, and “in the end his results are arresting precisely because of their unusual points of origin” (Molly Sheridan, CD liner notes).

Thirteen Near-Death Experiences is an art-pop song cycle about hypochondria featuring Dargel’s vocals accompanied by amplified chamber ensemble. The songs touch upon various health issues with titles like “Ritalin” and “Sometimes a Migraine is Just a Migraine,” but also touch “on larger questions of love, loneliness, and alienation” (New York Times). These songs have been described as “quirky, lyrical tales of dysfunction and delusion” (eMusic) and “wryly witty and often hilarious, crafted with a charming, angular lyricism” (Chicago Classical Review). The cycle is accompanied by ICE and David T. Little on drums, and was premiered at Performance Space 122 in New York, where Jayson Greene of 17dots praised his balance and control over playfulness and empathy.

Removable Parts, a series of love songs about voluntary amputation, makes up the second CD of Someone Will Take Care of Me. The New York Times calls it “almost perversely pleasurable” and sees the amputation motif as “problematic metaphor” that Dargel handles “with an intelligent grace that is as moving as it is impressive.” Dargel’s synergistic emotional delivery in Removable Parts has been described as “intense, heartfelt, funny, emotional” (Parterre Box), “at once uproarious and harrowing” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), “with unflinching directness but also with grace and empathy” (All Music). The cycle in its theatrical form won the 2007 New York Innovative Theater award for Best Performance-Art Production.