Q&A With Legendary UK DJ & Writer Greg Fenton

Read full Q&A @ MAGAZINESIXTY

Il Quotidiano : Review of 'Light Sweet Crude | Act 1:Hybrid'

Voci nella nebbia

di Paolo De Bernardin

VANESSA DAOU

Light sweet crude

Immaginate la voce di Yoko Ono fusa con quella di una tipica ninfetta francese in stile Françoise-Hardy-anni-sessanta, oppure uno strano incontro tra Sade e Laurie Anderson ed avrete la rappresentazione artistica concreta di Vanessa Daou, matura artista proveniente dalle Isole Vergini, ormai newyorkese a tutti gli effetti giunta con questo lavoro al suo settimo disco.

Vanessa Daou non è ossessionata dalla produzione discografica se ha realizzato gli ultimi tre album in 15 anni ma il suo stile è perennemente legato alle tendenze più fashion della Grande Mela. Il suo mix di musica ambient, di sofisticato technohousing e di pop sussurrato su una base elettronica è davvero originale e fa pensare ad un moderno Brian Eno in gonnella che si introduce in un club di jazz. Basterebbero brani come "Brunette" oppure "Revolution", che chiude l'intero disco, per rappresentarla col suo crescendo ossessivo dal raffinato sapore esotico che fa convivere Maurice Ravel con i Kraftwerk ("Love is war"). Di certo non si può ascrivere l'arte vocale della Daou al bel canto o alla perfezione formale delle grandi voci della storia perché a lei interessa più che il respiro diventi strumento e che si mescoli alle atmosfere di Jamiroquai e di Jazzmatazz, tra un testo poetico di Erica Jong e selezionate pagine di Gertrude Stein. E' il risultato della frequentazione e dello studio alla Columbia University con il poeta Kenneth Koch (e di recente col poeta spagnolo Bruno Galindo) mescolato agli elementi coreografici di Eric Hawkins che le ha insegnato la postura del corpo in un movimento armonico che faccia diventare il suo concerto uno show visuale complesso, lontano dalla staticità di Laurie Anderson e più apparentato ad una sofisticata sfilata di Alta Moda.

Con la sua musica Vanessa Daou ha reso omaggio al femminismo e a John Coltrane, ai Depeche Mode e ai Cocteau Twins in una esplorazione sonora che non ama le barriere e diventa continuo crossover esplorativo che la trasforma in una modernissima Frida Khalo della musica contemporanea. Il percorso sonoro di Vanessa Daou è una continua navigazione a vista nell'oceano della poesia tra sinuosi movimenti del corpo e un tappeto sonoro penetrante. Brani come "Trouble comes" , "Just for you", "Break me", "Camouflage", "Bar D'O" (in stile Satie) hanno quel potere di una nebbia avvolgente e ossessiva che gli inglesi traducono nel termine "sultry" nel quale la passione è un'afa da cui non ci si può liberare.


Il Quotidano

_______________________________________________________

A finessed Google translation:

VOICES IN THE MIST

By Paolo De Bernardin

Imagine the voice of Yoko Ono merged with that of a typical French style nymphet - Françoise Hardy - year 1960, or a strange encounter between Sade and Laurie Anderson and have the artistic representation of the real Vanessa Daou, a seasoned artist coming from the Virgin Islands, now a New Yorker, currently out with her seventh disc.


Vanessa Daou is not at all obsessed with the record production achieved over the last three albums in 15 years, but her style is forever linked to the fashion trends of the Big Apple. Its mix of ambient music, and pop of sophisticated techno-housing — whispered on a base of electronica — is truly original and looks like a modern Brian Eno in a skirt who is introduced into a jazz club. It would have songs like "Brunette" or "Revolution", which closes the entire disk, to represent it with her growing obsessive refined exotic flavor that makes live Maurice Ravel with Kraftwerk ("Love is War"). Of course we can not attribute the vocal art of bel canto to Daou or the formal perfection of the great voices of history because she is interested in more than just the breath and becoming a tool that mixes the atmosphere of Jamiroquai and Jazzmatazz, including a poetic text Erica Jong and selected pages of Gertrude Stein. And the result of attendance and study at Columbia University with the poet Kenneth Koch (and recently with the Spanish poet Bruno Galindo) mixed with the choreographic elements of Eric Hawkins, who taught her the posture of the body in a harmonic movement that gave a visually complex shape to her concert, away from the static Laurie Anderson and more allied to a sophisticated fashion show of haute couture .

With her music Vanessa Daou has paid tribute to feminism and John Coltrane, Depeche Mode and the Cocteau Twins in a sonic exploration that does not like barriers and becomes a continuous crossover exploratory transformation into a modern Frida Kahlo of contemporary music. The sound path Vanessa Daou is a continuous visual navigation in the ocean of poetry between sinuous movements of the body and a carpet of penetrating sound. Songs like "Trouble Comes ", " Just for you ", " Break Me," " Camouflage ", " Bar D'O" (Satie -style ) have the power of a fog, enveloping and obsessive, that translates into the English word "sultry", in which there is a passion from which we cannot be free.

Pop Matters | Music In Spotlight : 'Dark Days, Luminous Nights: An Interview with Vanessa Daou' — By Imran Khan

By Imran Khan

Vanessa Daou assumed her place on the dance music throne during the height of the cresting electronica scene in the 90’s rather reluctantly. The New Yorker’s music was never destined to be a staple of radio and, moreover, it required listeners to do two things at once: dance and think—two functions that don’t necessarily jibe well on a dance floor. Her heady brew of electronic beats and poetic implorations have both fascinated and mystified listeners alike; aiming at both the head and the feet, Daou’s music has never sought to be accepted as a genre defined by a playlist or the same marketing ploys used to sell lingerie. Instead, the singer spent her time and resources wisely, mining the library for books to feed and supplement her musical diet. Take Zipless (1995), her first solo outing into lounge-hopping culture, where she would spark the curiosity and desire of both the literati and club-goers. Zipless, her proper debut, was the congealed lava of still heated emotions, cooling slowly over the bedrock of smooth, percolating beats. The sonic dressing, courtesy of producer and then-husband Peter Daou, furnished the music with the sweaty, carnal atmosphere of two lovers locked in an overheated sauna and deliriously happy about it. At the core was Daou’s voice, a haunting, diaphanous whisper that divulged only the most clandestine secrets in the listener’s ear. Zipless was so over-the-top in its impassioned femininity and, yet, so understated in its approach and intent that you might have missed what was the album’s most sensual cue: Erica Jong’s erotic poetry, of which Daou’s lyrics were based upon. Her association with Jong alone made Daou the talk feminist circles amidst the album’s release; meanwhile, her tracks were doing time in the swankiest of underground cells, giving DJs a run for their wax and honey.

After the liquid fire of Zipless, Daou tuned into a lower frequency of sex, started reading again and discovered the lives of her muses on 1996’s Slow to Burn, a night out on the town in the lonelier corners of the heart. Bluer than Zipless but not as overheated with sexual magma, Slow to Burn showed listeners the right way a woman unwound for the evening hours—without a man and certainly without worry for it. Strange and fey feelings permeated the album and Daou, lost in the fog of deep regret and loneliness, ultimately essayed the personal triumphs of no longer being at the mercy and whim of a desired man. Her closing line on the album, “I’ll cross that bridge to you”, embodied the wisdom and spirit of a young woman finally learning the difference between simply having choices and actually making them.

After negotiating out of her major-label contract with MCA records following an internal shift of major players and talents, Daou opted to record independently and out of the ethers came the sex-in-space odyssey Plutonium Glow, released in 1997. A wondrous fusion of retro-electro beats, orbiting keyboard licks and dizzying sexploits, Glow took some of its inspiration from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince and fancied Daou a traveler through an emotional galaxy lined with debutantes, soldiers, lovers and hustlers. Transmitting from some strange universe of grandiose desires, the singer communicated all the pleasures and grievances of love in the long stretches of electronic reverb hovering in the mix.

Read full review @ PopMatters

Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid — Andre Baum

Light Sweet Crude, Act 1: Hybrid

iTUNES

 
My new album 'Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid" started out as a personal journey, like my previous ones. But at some point along the way, one collaboration lead to another which lead to another, and so on. The idea evolved into a collaborative one, where the songs I was writing took on other shapes and meanings. New songs developed through these creative comminglings. ‘Light Sweet Crude’ has been very much like a spiral starting from one point, moving outwards and opening into a dynamic and complex formation.

Each producer comes from such a unique perspective. At the same time, there’s a commonality that runs through all of their music, a sonic connection which translates into a philosophical one. I love how these connections create a thread which runs through the album, and how their differences lead to an exciting asymmetry and disambiguation. In a series of posts, I'll be discussing each Producer, in alphabetical order…..........

________________________________

André Baum is a master at sonic synthesis. His library of sounds is vast - finding the slightest hum of a fan fascinating, André can turn what might seem like an ordinary sound into an audible sculptural form, giving meaning to what would otherwise go unheard. His work emphasizes the inchoate aspects of existence, the immense importance of listening, of hearing - and beyond that - of tuning-in to the world. André’s ‘sound’ is in and of itself a Thesis Statement, that the world we live in is alive sonically, oscillating and pulsing invisibly, reminding us that verything is waiting to be heard, listened to, uncloaked, decoded.

André & I share a fascination with sonics, sounds which evoke and suggest transcendent, nameless things. While producing "One Thing I'm Missing", André tuned into the core of the meaning of the song, a bluesy rumination on the theme of missing the one you love, and the blazing realization that beauty & the bittersweet often reside in the same psychological & sonic space. 

I love exploring new terrain with André who, like me, is always searching, pushing his own creative envelope into further liminal & untrodden realms. "One Thing I'm Missing" is a meditation on those unspoken achings which only music can express.

XVanessa



ONE THING I’M MISSING You're on time, I came early
Just to see if you’d keep your word
After everything I've heard
I'm surprised I still have faith
Your promise is so easy to break


Today was a beautiful day
There's just one thing that I'm missing
The bittersweetness of your kissing


You're the type to mix love with liquid
Stir it up into a troubling brew
Make me lose my way
Take the apple from the snake
A habit you taught me


Today was a beautiful day
There's just one thing that I'm missing
The bittersweetness of your kissing


Summertime, but nothing's easy
I'm out for Jazz and Cocktails without you
I hear fifty shades of blue
A color you’ve gotten me used to
And that’s when I realize


Today was a beautiful day
There's just one thing that I'm missing
The bittersweetness of your kissing

 .............................

Poetronics: Vanessa Daou's "One Thing I'm Missing"

By Imran Khan

A New York Times review of Chinese writer Can Xue’s work asserted that reading the author’s fiction is like “running downhill in the dark; you’ve got momentum, but you don’t know where you’re headed.”  Such a sentiment could be said of Vanessa Daou’s newest work; much of her recent explorations with club culture incite the chancy, dangerous thrill of experiment. Daou has already made a name for herself with her astonishing mix of spoken word and electronic beats on her six previous albums. Her voice, an eerie, peculiar sigh which brings a yielding and sensual warmth to her sultry grooves, is equally noted for its unbridled femininity. 
 
Not exactly an official single, “One Thing I’m Missing” is a taster for Daou’s upcoming release, Light, Sweet, Crude, an album that will delve into the further reaches of hip-hop and electronica after the heavily jazz-leaning offering of 2008’s Joe Sent Me. “One Thing I’m Missing” still trades on the downbeat tempos of her last album but fully engages in the atmospherics of digital paranoia, with icy sheets of synths layered upon a druggy, languid groove. Daou’s vocal, a strange, twisted call resounding from some Promethean netherworld, is essentially the hinge of which producer André Baum builds his rhythms upon, the cadence of his groove flowing with the awkward, elegant grace of a frozen river thawing. Sinuous, ghostly and poetic, this number heralds a return to Daou’s previous flirtations with DJ culture.  

 Read more & 'Like' @ PopMatters

 .............................

House Playlist: Lorde, Phantogram, Glasser, & Vanessa Daou

Vanessa Daou, "One Thing I'm Missing": Best known for a string of '90s club hits including "Near the Black Forest" (from her 1995 opus Zipless, which appeared on our list of the Best Albums of the 1990s), singer Vanessa Daou has dropped a trippy slice of chill-out called "One Thing I'm Missing," from producer André Baum's new compilation People People Volume 1, out now.

Read full post @ SLANT

Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid — 'Pop Making Sense' review

Pop Making Sense by David Byrne with Tony Peregrin2013-12-25

Blonde divas Britney Spears and Beyonce have new albums out to add to the year-end rush. "Perfume" and "Now That I Found You" dare to shed the overproduced dance sound Spears has been favoring. But she sings as if clothespins are pinching her nose and her tongue during "Work Bitch." The club-ready tracks—ike "It Should Be Easy," the mindless "Tik Tik Boom" and "Til It's Gone"—surely will give her extended live engagement in Las Vegas an extra jolt of energy. Just be mindful of cliche-plagued fillers "Passenger" and "Don't Cry" on Britney Jean.

[...]

On Light Sweet Crude ( Act 1: Hybrid ), Vanessa Daou puts her music into motion. "Revolution" has strings with a groove that the body cannot resist. On "Danger Ahead," Daou opens with spoken word as if at a beat club, then steps next door to a lounge once the slick electronic beat sneaks in. Love is many things.

Daou creatively illustrates the powerful emotion and then silences the opposition by unveiling love's universal definition on the standout "Love Is War" by singing, "Love is peace, love is war. Love is what we're fighting for." "One Think I'm Missing" finds her mesmerizing and breathless over a drawn-out, hypnotic beat. Light Sweet Crude never loses its groove or sensuality. Whether it is her vocal's timing, her phrasing of lyrics or captivating me in her music's rhythm, once again Daou is simply spellbinding. The self-released Light Sweet Crude and remixes to "Danger Ahead" are available now digitally.

Read full column @ Pop Making Sense

A playlist inspired by 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' — Windy City Times

A playlist inspired by 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' 

WINTER MUSIC SPECIAL 

Special to the online edition of Windy City Times 

by David Byrne 

2013-12-12

When Twentieth Century Fox released the first trailer to X-Men: Days of Future Past, I was excited to get a glimpse at this anticipated sequel. The storyline has the franchise's key character, Wolverine ( Hugh Jackman ), traveling back to the '70s in an attempt to prevent a murder that leads to a horrific future, where his fellow mutants are hunted down. I was so moved that I decided to create a playlist inspired by the upcoming blockbuster.

Some of the music's themes are despair, hope, time travel and heroes. I wanted to stray from obvious choices like Madonna's "Bedtime Story," Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero ( Thunderdome )," Mariah Carey's "Hero" and The Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Time Warp." The next step was narrowing down the collection to under 20 songs.

The playlist kicks off with fiery rock anthems from Canadian artists. "Positronic" by The Pack A.D. salutes science-fiction icon Isaac Asimov and paints an image of the Sentinels, which are huge man-made machines used to hunt down mutants and protect humans in the X-Men universe. Jane Child is best remembered for her pop-funk hit "Don't Wanna Fall in Love." Here, I am including her guitar-heavy "Step out of Time" from her sophomore effort, Here Not There.

Vanessa Daou sings coolly on the dramatic "Manifesto," which has an absolutely marvelous version on her compilation Speak/Easy: The Moonshine Mixes ( Joe Sent Me Revisited ). The piece climaxes intensely, as her digitally enhanced voice proclaims, "Only I can save you." This captures how Wolverine solely is trusted by the leader Charles Xavier ( Patrick Stewart ) and his unlikely ally, Magneto ( Ian McKellen ), to accomplish this mission.

Read more @ Windy City Times

Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid — The Updownsuite review

Light sweet crude, as a liquid, may be the world's most sought after form of energy but Light Sweet Crude…, as an album, relies on another universal version of energy:  love.  If Vanessa Daou's past works have largely been a cerebral exploration of love, lust, sex, and loss, then Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid is a physical manifestation of those topics through voice and action.  "Hybrid", contextualized in title, assumes many meanings.  At once, it represents the multi-layered sonic landscape of the album while also representing linguistics acting as a catalyst for emotional reaction though the actions of desire.  Daou is a poet by design and Light Sweet Crude… is her most lyrically ambitious project to date.  The previously mentioned topics may not seem like anything new but Daou’s pro-sex, pro-female slant is refreshingly individualistic.  Emphasizing text as power, Daou effortlessly moves from the simple: Did you get my note/"goodbye" is what I wrote ("Goodbye") to the more ambitiously broad: Use your pen as revenge ("Danger Ahead").

Language continually plays the lead throughout Light Sweet Crude… and at its most consistent, language exists between surrender and salvation.  Daou is a woman who is wildly seduced by a married man ("Love Affair"), protective of her heart’s desires ("Camouflage”"), and vulnerability (“Dream”).  While these all may be characteristics of a damsel in distress, Daou is no weak-hearted woman in love; she’s a self-aware figure who challenges the female archetype.

On "Just for You", even intoxicated, she realizes that her desire is being manipulated by a Lothario – a man who unabashedly seduces women.  Elsewhere, standout tack “Love is War” finds Daou exploring the underbelly of love.  Daou might be alluding to her own divorce(though the split was amicable)  with the lines It"s your voice calls me ‘honey’/Then the lawyers, judge and money/It’s a mass delusion/An end with no conclusion.  However, divorce isn't the central topic of "Love is War"; love, obviously, is on the front line of this battle. Hypothetically, it shows Daou as a defiant female who notes that "Lanchester got it right".  The assumed impression is that Lanchester is Edith Lanchester – a Victorian era feminist who defied society by living with a man. The two remained unmarried and she bore two children out of their scandalous union.  Additionally, she explores the process of a co-dependent relationship in a series of acts as if life were a play ("The Broken Hearted").  As the album concludes, Daou suggests a "Revolution" because "silence is a loaded gun you are tempted to shoot" and "nothing really matters if you don't want to speak from the heart".  The exploration of language is all rather academic but what about the music itself?

Vanessa Daou has always had a strong hand in writing, composing, and arranging her music.  Light Sweet Crude… finds Daou working with a handful of producers who bring a new found depth to the album.  Daou’s signature breathy vocals are still present but exhibit a deeper, more complex range.  The previously mentioned “Love is War” finds Daou's voice as pure and clear as a mountain stream and it runs over a landscape of soft piano, strings, and beats that would make Everything But the Girl proud.  "Chances" flirts with reggae and the opening snare sounds pure and urgent.  "Break Me" confidently steps into Portishead territory and several tracks are wrapped in veils of Massive Attack and Tricky.  Daou's musical history may be steeped in jazz, urban, and down-tempo electronic music but Light Sweet Crude… sounds like Daou has made a full out trip-hop album. 

Each track is richly textured with both warm, organic instrumentation and icy, bass-heavy beats.  The strings (most notably on "Revolution") are dramatic and ever present but without ever being fussy or distracting and they lay over the beats like a warm blanket.  This further explores the concept of "hybrid" as the album marries the warm and the cold, the organic and non-organic, the black and the white.  While the influences are heavy, make no mistake – this is very much a Vanessa Daou album and it happens to be one of her very best.

Light Sweet Crude… may never soundtrack your top down summer drives and it’s unlikely that you will be humming any of the tunes in the shower but the album deserves attention.  Like conversation following a moving cinematic experience, the exploration of feelings in relation to a work of art, or a round table discussion about literature, Light Sweet Crude… invites you to explore and process your own reaction.  While it lacks the pop-minded nature of Make You Love, it’s the most consistent and engaging album of Daou’s since Zipless.  Light Sweet Crude… isn't merely a collection of songs and much like V V Brown’ Samson & Delilah, it's a story that passionately unfolds - a visceral experience that just happens to exist in a world of brilliantly crafted music.

Equally sexy and empowering, Light Sweet Crude: Act 1: Hybrid is a bold step forward for Vanessa Daou and for an independent artist, that’s vital in regards to sustainability.  In her own words: "We live in a time of love and cameras/It's not always the way it was/But we can't go back/I say cheers to that!" 

 A

Download Now:  You really should just get the whole album but if you insist -- "Trouble Comes", "Chances", "Just for You", "Break Me", "The Brunette", "Love is War", and "Revolution"


Read original post @ The Updownsuite

Puchase on iTUNES

 

Danger Ahead — The Updownsuite review

“Come along and walk among us / The polyglots, the derelict / The ones whose shoes never seem to fit…”

Underground poet/down tempo electro-goddess Vanessa Daou unleashes "Danger Ahead" as the official first single from her highly anticipated upcoming album Light Sweet Crude: Act One - Hybrid.  Trading the gin and jazz soaked sounds of her speakeasy themed project – 2008's Joe Sent Me, "Danger" finds Daou flirting with early 90’s house a la Danny Tenaglia.  Heavily layered and club ready, "Danger" is brimming with Daou's signature breathy and sultry vocals.  Dealing with those who exist on the outskirts of society's norms, "Danger" is a welcome addition to Daou's already diverse character studies and by incorporating tribal beats and strings, it also recalls the sonic richness of Daou's earlier work. 

B+

Read original post @ theupdownsuite

Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid — Tom's Music Place review

Thomas Carley

Tom's Music Reviews For December 1, 2013: Tom's Music Place

Vanessa Daou - Light Sweet Crude: Act 1: Hybrid - A+

Normally, I don't write, worded reviews, and like to let the music, speak for itself, but in the case of Vanessa Daou's new album, I need to make an exception.

The time is now, for Vanessa Daou. In all of music, there has never been the likes Of her. She has pushed the boundaries of music and poetry since her debut, Zipless. But nothing prepares the listener for Light Sweet Crude: Act 1 - Hybrid. This album haunts you, until you just can't stand it any longer, and need to hear it again. As you start the album, your mind starts to understand the depth of what it's listening to. It creeps up on you, in slow waves. But there are three songs, that everybody must listen to. The first is Bar D'O. This is simply a majestic and very emotional gem. It is so melancholy in it's approach, it had me in tears from the first note. 

The second track that you must listen to is Dream, which pretty much says it all. A very calming effect will come over you as you listen. And the best track, I can only describe in this way, a complete and total mindfuck, is Trouble Comes. Now why do I call it this, let's look at the definition according to the Urban Dictionary. A mindfuck is an idea or concept that shakes one's previously held beliefs or assumptions about the nature of reality. Well when you listen to Trouble Comes, you will feel an earthquake. 

And as far I am concerned, this album and this song cements Vanessa Daou's genius as a musician, as if I needed any other proof. She knows what she is , she is just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.



Read original post @ Tom's Music Place

'Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid' feat. on Pause&Play List of New Releases 12.03

Read full list @ Pause&Play

Light Sweet Crude | Act 1: Hybrid — Notable Mentions

■ R&B/hip-hop — Vanessa Daou explores noirish house music on “Light Sweet Crude (Act One: Hybrid).” — Jeffrey Lee Puckett, Courier-journal

■ Vanessa Daou, "Light Sweet Crude (Act One: Hybrid)" (Daou Records/KID Recordings). On her seventh solo album, the Virgin Islands native continues mixing jazz, pop, dance-floor action and intelligent sexuality and sensuality.  
— Journal Sentinel



 

'Danger Ahead' | DMC Single of the Week

DMC

Just in case you missed out on this, as I almost did, ‘Danger Ahead’ really is another treat from the voice which adorned the classic The Daou ‘Surrender Yourself’ amongst many others. Lifted from the forthcoming album 'Light Sweet Crude - Act One: Hybrid' its dirty, bass driven lines are suitably offset by the bittersweet and rather breathy vocals, accompanied by strident piano chords and classy House beats on DJ Hen’s Boogie Extended Mix. A further eight versions are also available varying the style. Second track ‘Dirty Blonde’ plays an altogether different game with down-tempo grooves and even more sultry vocals.

4 out of 5
Reviewed by Greg Fenton

Buy on iTUNES

Light Sweet Crude | Courier Journal

"R&B/hip-hop — Vanessa Daou explores noirish house music on “Light Sweet Crude (Act One: Hybrid).”

by Jeffrey Lee Puckett 

Read more @ Courier Journal

'House Music Heroine' | Terry Farley : FB thread

The virtual world is by its nature an ephemeral one. But words, are, after all, powerful & often beautiful things, too often missed. This post by Terry Farley - of the legendary Boy's Own - and the FB thread it inspired is case in point.....

XOXO

Feat. Interview @ NERDY FRAMES

My interview @ the fAb NZ blog NerdyFrames is up, with a supremely eloquent intro by Nerdy himself:

"Here is a fantastic woman with a unique voice that has been echoing in my mind (as well as many others from Generation X) since the mid 90s when she released her hits Near the Black Forest and Two to Tango. Her love for Jazz mixed in with her husky vocals, erotic subtext makes her stand out from the offerings of that time period.

Vanessa Daou is back and although that the playing field pertaining to the music industry is different today; she has optimism, clout, experience, wisdom and knowledge as well as self-awareness on how it is now.

She started doing music with her then Husband Peter Daou who was behind engineering and production (also related to novelist Erica Jong who became an close confidant to Vanessa) between the two under the name The Daou.

This led to her working in various other genres, which included house; especially having remixes done by Danny Tenaglia!

Her debut album Zipless was on MCA as well as her follow up Slow to Burn, but during that time a restructuring was occurring unbeknownst to Vanessa who was touring Zipless which led to layoffs at the label, artists dropped from their contracts and that all important creative differences thing that runs rampant in music. Lucky for Vanessa she survived the ordeal thanks in part to her lawyer that implemented a clause to have her maintain creative control and not have her bondage to a 7 record deal contract.

Today she is now an indie artist releasing music on her own and having tastemakers like myself promote her efforts and curating those who didn’t discover her the first time around

In this exclusive interview, we talk to the lovely enchantress herself, now wiser and still beautiful."

READ MORE @ NERDY FRAMES
 

Vanessa Daou - Danger Ahead — DMC Review

"Just in case you missed out on this, as I almost did, ‘Danger Ahead’ really is another treat from the voice which adorned the classic The Daou ‘Surrender Yourself’ amongst many others. Lifted from the forthcoming album 'Light Sweet Crude - Act One: Hybrid' its dirty, bass driven lines are suitably offset by the bittersweet and rather breathy vocals, accompanied by strident piano chords and classy House beats on DJ Hen’s Boogie Extended Mix. A further eight versions are also available varying the style. Second track ‘Dirty Blonde’ plays an altogether different game with down-tempo grooves and even more sultry vocals."

4 out of 5

Reviewed by Greg Fenton

Read more @ DMC

Light Sweet Crude | Artist's Statement @ NERDY FRAMES

"Music, poetry, song; the secret regions of the voice. The far edges of consciousness and memory,: those liminal realms reached by the Poet’s phrasings and timbres; a lover’s inchoate whispers. Words and melodies are all tools and instruments, salves or salvos, and, like weapons, they can be directed, aimed and launched, as a direct response or spontaneous reaction; as an invitation or instigation, through subtext or subterfuge.

Before I write, it is often one word that drives me: this idea might then become a drawing or a painting or a poem before it becomes a song. This mixing of media says something to me about the clash or meeting between fields or layers of thought, creating alliances between things, or making them repel and pull apart. 
I look to language, sound, symbols – to words and their hidden and layered histories – for clues as to how ideas are changed, how messages are coded, intercepted, interpreted, and corrupted, when and which things go from trash to artifact."

Read my full Artist's Statement @ NERDY FRAMES

11.22 feat. on NZ's Essential Electronic/Indie blog NERDY FRAMES

So y’all remember the beautiful and talented vanessa daou right? You know the lovely lass with such hits as “Near The Black Forest” or “Two to Tango” and a slue of other singles.

Well……good news is that she is still around and still has that smokey voice that is synonymous with this rather demure figure!

Check out her recent activities with this track after the jump and thank you Vanessa for sticking around. I grew up listening to her music.

Read  more @ NERDY FRAMES

Vanessa Daou – ‘Danger Ahead’ (MANIK Rework) - Soundplate

"MANIK has dropped this big new remix for Vanessa Daou and KID Recordings (in association with Daou Records). This will come out tomorrow (19/11/13) alongside remixes from DJ Hen Boogie, Son Of Sound, Kenny Summit, Many Ward, Culture Fires and Vanessa, herself. Check it out and leave a comment or tweet with any feedback you have."

SOUNDPLATE

Poetronics: Vanessa Daou's "One Thing I'm Missing" | PopMatters review

Downtempo maven Vanessa Daou offers
a sampling from her upcoming release.

By Imran Khan

A New York Times review of Chinese writer Can Xue's work asserted that reading the author’s fiction is like "running downhill in the dark; you’ve got momentum, but you don’t know where you’re headed."  Such a sentiment could be said of Vanessa Daou’s newest work; much of her recent explorations with club culture incite the chancy, dangerous thrill of experiment. Daou has already made a name for herself with her astonishing mix of spoken word and electronic beats on her six previous albums. Her voice, an eerie, peculiar sigh which brings a yielding and sensual warmth to her sultry grooves, is equally noted for its unbridled femininity. 
 
Not exactly an official single, "One Thing I’m Missing" is a taster for Daou’s upcoming release, Light, Sweet, Crude, an album that will delve into the further reaches of hip-hop and electronica after the heavily jazz-leaning offering of 2008’s Joe Sent Me. “One Thing I’m Missing” still trades on the downbeat tempos of her last album but fully engages in the atmospherics of digital paranoia, with icy sheets of synths layered upon a druggy, languid groove. Daou’s vocal, a strange, twisted call resounding from some Promethean netherworld, is essentially the hinge of which producer André Baum builds his rhythms upon, the cadence of his groove flowing with the awkward, elegant grace of a frozen river thawing. Sinuous, ghostly and poetic, this number heralds a return to Daou’s previous flirtations with DJ culture. 

Read original review @ PopMatters