Plutonium Glow: 'A terrible beauty is born', again

Nuclear power is perhaps the most invisible, the most invincible force there is.

Is it curiosity, fascination, hubris - a combination of these - that has led humanity down this toxic, radioactive road? How is it that we have allowed the building of these lumbering, monstrous facilities in our towns, backyards, most especially in regions that have long histories of earthquakes and tsunamis? The latest:

Disaster in Japan: Latest developments, March 18

Japan battles nuclear, humanitarian crisis

Japan's Once-Powerful Nuclear Industry Is Under Siege

Q+A: Risks at each reactor of Japan's stricken plant explained

In 1997 I wrote Plutonium Glow, inspired by a Google search of nuclear payloads that were being sent into space. At the time, there were online forums, discussions and newspaper articles about the dangers of a possible release of nuclear material from these payloads, and concurrent calculations as to the risks of its spread and dispersal (wind speed, cloud coverage, distance, etc.)

The need to utilize these types of equations has today, tragically, sadly, become our 'unforeseen' reality.

A glowing pellet of 238PuO2

During my research, I read about The Hanford Nuclear Plant which was mired in much controversy regarding their handling of Plutonium, the element that inspired the album's title and lyrics. Plutonium - a byproduct of the process of generating nuclear energy - is both tantalizing and terrifying. The artwork for 'Plutonium Glow' was inspired by my readings and reflections on Plutonium, and the idea of a 'terrible beauty', twin qualities which are often unalterably and hideously conjoined.

While we've become adept at calculating dispersal clouds, it's the unforeseen events that we've neglected to factor in, yet, these "unimaginable" - or unimagined - scenarios keep occurring. Perhaps it's time to team up the architects who design these facilities with artists, writers and film makers? In hindsight, the imagination is, perhaps, the one missing element that could have led to a more resilient and robust design of these reactors.

Unbelievably, as of today, 14 years after the release of Plutonium Glow - a Google search of 'the hanford nuclear plant' leads me down a horribly familiar and incredulous rabbit hole:

Hanford needs $2.9 billion in 2013 for cleanup

Hanford Responds to Concerns Over Nuclear Plant: Whistleblower Daily News

From bombs to $800 handbags: Trouble stalks America’s biggest clean-up

Long outage scheduled at Hanford nuclear plan 

A question remains: where will we go from here? Forward, toward progress? Or backwards, against all common sense and logic, making the same deleterious and deadly mistakes, again, again, again...?

                                                                                               

Pictured:
The Hanford Nulclear Plant,
Polaroid from 'Plutonium Glow'

 

Best Albums of the '90s | SLANT Magazine

98. Vanessa Daou, Zipless. It's a small victory that Vanessa Daou was able to sneak "Near the Black Forest," writer Eric Jong's ode to her untended bush, onto VH1's playlist for a short spell. Daou's is a whisper of a singing voice, and her husband's jazz-house compositions would have been a challenge for any pop radio programmer, but more importantly, the content of Zipless, Daou's interpretations of Jong's poetry, was far too sophisticated for general audiences. The lyrical and musical centerpiece of the album is the entirely spoken-word "Alcestis on the Poetry Circuit"; in her understanding of how restraint, imposed both from within and from without ("The very fact of her gift should cause her such pain/That she will take her own life rather than best us"), is countered by the discovery or renewal of one's sense of self, Daou empowers both herself and her listeners. SC 

Read more @ SLANT

Five Albums You Should Be Listening To Right Now | by Sal Cinquemani

4. Vanessa Daou, Zipless

 

We recently posted our long-awaited list of the Best Albums of the '90s, and this is one of our lesser known picks. It's a collection of jazz-house interpretations of writer Erica Jong's poems. The lyrical and musical centerpiece of the album is the entirely spoken-word "Alcestis on the Poetry Circuit," which explores women's self-imposed restraint, both literal and figurative. Also, it's got a kick-ass keyboard solo.

Listen to "Alcestis on the Poetry Circuit" & Read more @ Nerve

'Heart of Wax' | New video

YouTube

'Consequences' | Eric Kupper's Distilled Mix

David Luckin's Playlist: Electro Lounge WJCT Feb 12, 2011

Playlist: Electro Lounge

February 12, 2011

10:00) Iron & Wine “Me & Lazarus”
10:05) Fauna Flash “Mother Nature” Blue Foundation Remix
10:09) A Forest Mighty Black “Duel With A Soul”
10:12) Ennio Morricone “Rivoluzione” Butti 49 Confusion Remix
10:15) London Funk Allstars “Never Can Get Enough”
10:19) Bonobo “Recurring”
10:25) Vanessa Daou “Consequences” Terry Lee Brown Jr.Remix
10:30) Sezer Uysal & Evren Ulusoy “At Night” Karol XVII & MB Valence Remix
10:35) Till Von Sein & Tigerskin “Sirene”
10:41) Danilo Venturi& Alberto Benati feat Isabelle Antena – A Night of Infinity
10:44) Rouge Rouge – C’est Presque Ca
10:49) Tontelas Featuring Ski – On My Way
!0:52) Soulphiction] Soulprint
10:56) Peggy Lee – Fever (remix)

Link to David Luckin's Electro Lounge

'Heart of Wax' @ MAXI

Heart Of Wax Part 1

Vanessa Daou

Label: Daou Records/KID Recordings/Outsider Music

Tags: chill-out, deep, dub, nu jazz, progressive

"Get ready to immerse yourself in the second offering lifted from Vanessa Daou’s Joe Sent Me LP. The tender and romantic "Heart Of Wax" with Vanessa’s delicate vocals, has been reinvented into a soul-stirring, late-night grinder just in time for Valentine's Day. Like swimming through a dream, AlphaMotive (aka Will Thomas of Divine Index and Plumbline) bathes you in warm, swirling electronics for a narcotic, deep house groove perfect for sweaty, late night sessions. Ganga (aka Danish producer Christian Ronn) counters with spacious, dub-drenched beats that pulse at just the right sensual pace for Daou's passionate poetry. It's all leading up to her remix album Moonshine Mixes scheduled for Fall 2011."


Read more @ MAXI

About 'Calming Park' | The Essence of Beauty

Art, music, spirituality, relaxation and fire. All these combine in art and candle by designer/artist and music curator OLIVIER ROHRBACH, founder of the Swiss brand CALMING PARK, renowned for the high concentration of scented essences in its candles. 

Made in Grasse, France, the world capital of perfume, CALMING PARK scented candles are made of soot-free organic palm wax and paraffin with a 12% perfume concentration. Available online and in select shops and high-end hotel’s SPA in France, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Korea and the US, the luxurious candles have recently found a second home in Paris, in addition to the Officina Slowear store at Village Royal, they are now available at exclusive Haute boutique COLETTE. The prestigious privately-owned shop has become the premier destination for many visiting Paris.

ROHRBACH has successfully nurtured a cult of relaxation with his inviting luxurious brand. He's collaborated with several gurus from the worlds of fashion, music and visual arts to design and customize limited edition candles including famed designer BRUNO PIETERS  (whose creations are worn by A-listers such as LADY GAGA, ROISIN MURPHY, SCISSOR SISTERS frontman JAKE SHEARS and DIANE KRUGER), SABINA SCIUBBA, MELODY GARDOT and French-American singer, actress and model ARIELLE DOMBASLE (whose gothic candle with tuberose and musk notes were inspired by her album GLAMOUR À MORT). 

He's also produced a series of essential, soothing and hedonistic CALMING PARK compilations featuring tracks from GOLDFRAPP, AMY WINEHOUSE, THE BIRD AND THE BEE, SIA, CIBELLE, FEIST, GOTAN PROJECT, JORI HULKKONEN, SUZANNE VEGA and many more.

Starting June 2011, ROHRBACH will create a two hour CALMING PARK music channel for SWISS Air Lines which will be available on every SWISS flight.

Visit Calming Park

Valentine's day 2011: Calming Park candles brighten Vanessa Daou's new video "Heart of Wax"

Valentine's day 2011: Calming Park candles brighten Vanessa Daou's new video "Heart of Wax"

"Calming Park gets enthralled by the spirit and the purport of Valentine's Day, celebrating in music. Calming Park candles will illuminate Vanessa Daou's new video "Heart of Wax", available from February 14th, 2011.

Music, love and being with your significant other, aren't they after all the real luxury?

Vanessa Daou, the high priestess of all things smoky, jazzy and provocative continues her love affair with the dancefloor and those more intimate spaces with the release of  "HEART OF WAX (THE REMIXES)" PT. I.

Issued just in time for Valentine’s Day and hot on the heels of her fiery single "CONSEQUENCES (THE REMIXES)", the single is destined to become an essential home listening companion for those long winter nights (or the theme song for your next great love affair).

In the music video that accompanies the song "Heart of Wax", the dim light of a Calming Park candle accompanies her performance, reflecting a global ambiance. Pack of Cactus, Vanessa's favorite scent from the CALMING PARK ‘s collection, were sent to New York for the video."

Calming Park

MusicMonday on WomensRadio

By Brian Ball, Host of WomensRadio Music Review

"As there are twenty-four bottles or cans in a case, there are twenty-four fantastic selections here for our listeners to 'crack open' this MusicMonday on WomensRadio!  There’s new music coming in from every angle imaginable, including submissions from AMALIA (Tokyo Dawn Records), Lena Prima Louis Prima), Vanessa Daou (our current downtempo crush) and longtime WomensRadio favorite, Deborah Crooks. (daughter of legendary Jazz singer,

...

If you're on Twitter, you probably are already hip to the use of hash tags (#) to identify topics and trends ... and you probably see the same ones every Monday, “#MusicMonday", "#musicmonday" and "#MM".  These hash tags facilitate worldwide recommendations / promos / plugs / playlists / reviews / concerts / gear and MUCH more throughout Twitter, and now the entire web! 

Here at WomensRadio, we use these networks to give an added boost to the world's finest Independent Female (and Male) Musicians submitting to our studios.  Here are a couple of submissions we picked up early Monday morning:

#1: all in the golden afternoon Psychedelic from Austin, TX

#2: Erika Fatale Pop from Los Angeles, CA

#3: AMALIA Sci-Fi Soul / Punk from Stockholm, Sweden

#4: DJ Sunshine World / Reggae from Jamaica

#5: Lena Prima Jazz / Adult Contemporary from Las Vegas, NV

#6: Phenice Arielle Hip Hop / Pop / R&B from New York, NY

#7: The Lives of the Monster Dogs Swamp Rock / Southern Rock from Pine Lake, GA

#8: Hugh James Hardman Singer-Songwriter from Los Angeles, CA

#9: Steve Belkin Songwriter / Publisher from Los Angeles, CA

#10: Teresa James Blues / Country from Los Angeles, CA

#11: The Academix UK Funky House from North London, UK

#12: Shea Soul Eclectic Soul from London, UK

#13: Vanessa Daou Down-tempo / Electronica / Nu-Jazz from New York, NY

Read more @ FEMMEBOX

'Consequences' - FemmeBox review by Brian Ball

By Brian Ball, Host of WomensRadio Music Review

"We're literally jumping out of our seats to share a HUGE selection of amazing video content with our viewers this week!  There’s shoegaze from ELIKA, downtempo from Vanessa Daou ...

Vanessa Daou : Consequences – If our viewers are fans of anything even remotely classified as downtempo or 'Trip Hop', they're sure to enjoy this slow and sultry love song out on Daou Records. The lyrics are suggestive and the visuals are nothing short of invigorating. Fans of Portishead, Massive Attack, Artemis and Divasonic take note…"

FEMMEBOX

'Consequences' - Timewriter’s New Ways Mix

Link to djmsky's YouTube channel

'Weird Tales for Winter' 2011

Weird Tales for WInter 2011

It wouldn't be winter without Johhny Mugwump's 'weird tales' radio series on Resonance 104.4 FM (UK)...
 
For lovers of what's dusky and lurid - of murky & miasmal mindscapes - don't miss this year's grim & glorious offerings...

Link here

V

'Consequences' - Pop In stereo review

New York's Vanessa Daou is back with a brand new single, "Consequences," out now on iTunes.

"The single, which features production work from Piet Blank, Jaspa Jones and Andy Kaufhold, has been given remixes by house music legend Eric Kupper, The Timewriter, Terry Lee Brown Jr, Harlum (aka David Harness and Chris Lum) and German trance & chillout duo Blank And Jones, so there is something for everyone here. From ambient to deep house, the "Consequences" remix package does not disappoint.

The release of "Consequences" marks the first of several new songs Vanessa will release in a series of inspired works from Joe Sent Me, Vanessa's 6th solo album and first release on her current imprint Daou Records.

I have been a fan of Vanessa's since first seeing the music video for her single "Near The Black Forest," which was taken from her solo debut, Zipless. I find it really easy to connect with her music because the songs are so easy to relate to."

Read more

CONSEQUENCES **New Video & Mixes**

CONSEQUENCES is now available iTunes & all digital outlets with mixes by: Blank & Jones, Harlum (aka David Harness and Chris Lum), Eric Kupper & The Timewriter, and is a featured release & the featured video at MAXI, the online hub for DJs and the club community.

FEMMEBOX says: "If our viewers are fans of anything even remotely classified as downtempo or 'Trip Hop', they’re sure to enjoy this slow and sultry love song out on Daou Records. The lyrics are suggestive and the visuals are nothing short of invigorating.  Fans of Portishead, Massive Attack, Artemis and Divasonic take note…"

We live in a great time to be making music! Technology is freedom!

XOVanessa

'Love Among the Shadowed Things' now on iTunes

Poetry, sound & music for 'Weird Tales for Winter', a collective radio series curated by Jonny Mugwump for his Exotic Pylon radio show on Resonance 104.4 FM

Now on iTunes

Broadcast January 31st 2010
Total playing time 30 minutes

Other featured artists contributing to the "hauntological dream project": Moon Wiring Club West Norwood Cassette Library and Matthew de Abaitua Dolly Dolly Belbury Poly and Lawrence Norfolk Radio Joy Mordant Music John Foxx

Featuring 'Snow':

Music that moves me: Dive Index - 'Agatha (feat Patrick Cooper)'

Dive Index - 'Agatha (feat Patrick Cooper)' HD from Neutral Music on Vimeo.

UN Report: New Technologies in Emergencies & Conflicts

Emergencies & Disasters, by their very nature, catch us by surprise. The most we can do is be prepared for the unforeseen. Take a few minutes of your time to read this report, it might just save your life one day, or the life of someone you love.

Link here & pass it on.

Art of the Song: Fever Ray's 'When I grow up'

What is a great song & what makes a song GREAT....?

It's about transformation, it should tell a story, present its own unique, unmistakable & unshakable reality; it should provoke, insinuate itself under your skin & reveal "the secret ranges of the voice" as Colette writes in Vagabond

There are many layers & facets to a good song: what is a great song & what makes it GREAT?

I asked this question on FB - 

• Alex said: "A great song has claws, or fingers, or tendrils that work their way inside you, grab hold, and never quite let go."

• Benjamin said: "That is a good definition...somebody i met recently said that they felt it was a kind of abuse to use a song repeatedly to bring back an emotion."

Words, music, melody. These 3 components constitute a song. Complexities arise with the addition of the human voice which communicates manifold layers of emotion, intimacy or distance, intention, implication, urgency or nonchalance.

'Fever Ray', the voice behind The Knife, uses all the weapons at her disposal to relay various messages through her voice: angst, regret, hope, refusal. She can be accusatory and self-deprecating all in the same breath. Brilliant, beautiful, caustic, commanding.

 

Lyrics:

When I grow up, I want to be a forester
Run through the moss on high heels
That’s what I’ll do, throwing out boomerang
Waiting for it to come back to me

When I grow up, I want to live near the sea
Crab claws and bottles of rum
That’s what I'll have staring at the seashell
Waiting for it to embrace me

I put my soul in what I do

Last night I drew a funny man
with dark eyes and a hanging tongue
It goes way back, I never liked a sad look
From someone who wants to be loved by you

I’m very good with plants
When my friends are away
they let me keep the soil moist
On the seventh day I rest
for a minute or two
then back on my feet and cry for you oooh oh

You've got cucumbers on your eyes
Too much time spent on nothing
waiting for a moment to arise
The face in the ceiling and arms too long
I wait for him to catch me

Waiting for you to embrace me

Link to Lyrics

Essential Reading: 'The Idiot Boy Who Flew'

THE IDIOT BOY WHO FLEW by Graham Reid

Winner of the TravCom Readers’ Choice Award 2010

Every once in a while, I read a book that reminds me of the importance of words, language, and communication. There's a shared communion in the reading of any book, a partaking of another person's experience, be it fiction or fact.

I'm half way through 'The Idiot Boy Who Flew' and I find myself purposefully slowing down, as I do with the books I love, in order to fully digest Reid's language, a combination of casual and poetic. Reid achieves a glorious and effortless eloquence which is sweeping me along as I turn the pages.

As the cover suggests, I feel embraced and transported. With each finished chapter, I feel as though I've been to the places Reid so lovingly shapes and articulates with his words, fueling my wonder and imagination with every turn of every page.

Music that moves me: Dive Index | Burn Their Bodies, featuring Cat Martino

Will Thomas - of 'Dive Index' - produces another infinitely beautiful song featuring Cat Martino. 'Burn Their Bodies' is today's top tune on KCRW:

"Dive Index is a collaborative down-tempo electronica project based in New York City and spearheaded by Will Thomas. Their latest recording, The Surface We Divide, features Joseph Arthur and Cat Martino, who sings on Today's Top Tune, "Burn Their Bodies." Download here

The new Dive Index album The Surface We Divide

Check back in for announcements of Will Thomas' remix of 'Heart of Wax' featured on the upcoming release of the JOE SENT ME 'Moonshine Mixes' -

XOVanessa

Vanessa Daou review archives: Dear John Coltrane JAZZ TIMES

JazzTimes

January/February 2000

Vanessa Daou
Dear John Coltrane
Daou Music

By Josef Woodard

"On previous outings, vocalist Vanessa Daou has danced the rhythm erotica with words from Erica Jong and yin/yang. On the new Dear John Coltrane (Daou Music, OMWCD15, 41:48), Daou and producer/instrumentalist/husband Peter get warm-like-dat with a 10-song meditation on the life, times and (personal) meaning of the Master. From the languid fervor of "Passed" ("While the Freedom Train was reaching critical mass/The Trane just passed.") to "Trane Tripping"'s dreamscape shuffle, as JB said, "Da grooves is there."

Link to review

John Siddique: The artist as alchemist...

‎"The artist as alchemist, breathing soul into clay,
shaping love and beauty, learn them with your hands."

John Siddique, excerpt from 'Lustre' [PDF]

 

Manchester Literature Festival

Suzanne Anker: a code that underlies everything

Suzanne Anker
Rorschach Series, (2004)
rapidprototype sculpture, plaster/resin
5.5" x 5.5" x 2.5" each

Beauty, breath. Suzanne Anker's artwork pulses with a life-force that emanates from within. Symbols, mythology, biology, teleology - all are themes that are intricately woven into the matrix of her work where meaning unfolds, unravels - in the way that thinking does, in the way that feeling does.

In butterfly in the brain, Anker's rapid prototyped Rorschach Series, the black 'splotches' play upon our collective as well as individual psychologies; they are at once familiar and foreign, analytic and spontaneous. Her works intimate that there is a code that underlies everything, yet their fractured, fragile, messages betray their will - or the artist's - to convey meaning. Magnificent, fascinating, terrifyingly and beautifully distancing. The door to understanding is opened, and before us, another door.  

Degrees of Freedom, Gravity & Spontaneous Sculptures @ SVA

Read full lecture workshop here:

VANESSA DAOU | Degrees of Freedom, Gravity & Spontaneous Sculptures @ SVA

Impromptu sculptures made by students of Suzanne Anker's Digital Sculpture class following my lecture/discussion "Degrees of Freedom", an analysis of the language of Dance as it relates to Sculpture:

Paglia v Gaga: the seX factor

There is a feeling of resignation, a feeling at the same time of refusal. Post modernism has brought us to the precipice of blandness, where even outrageousness suffers from banality. Here, looking over this abyss, there is a feeling that we are missing something. 

Recently, Camille Paglia dismantled Lady Gaga's throne in 'Lady Gaga and the death of sex':

"Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era..."

We now accept simulation and imitation as fertile ground for artistic expression where once this would have been seen as lacking the necessary quality of authenticity, Kandinsky's inner necessity. Artists of the Postmodern age proudly take refuge in places that artists of the past would have been ashamed to go. There is a lack of definition, a plurality of styles. There is a shamelessness that has become acceptable, even, arguably, essential.
 

Our critical lexicon has changed: we accept what to previous generations would have been anathema to their artistic sensibilities: simulation, appropriation, co-optation, gentrification. We have reached a point where we view art in terms of economic as opposed to aesthetic value, statement of style as opposed to Truth, means to an end - fame, notoriety - as opposed to an end in itself.

Alison Pearlman talks about how the "reduction of reference to style" of art here, and its how pluralism made works of art vulnerable to misappropriation: how the commodification of art works has led to their diminished import. But does wearing a T-shirt of the Mona Lisa diminish our appreciation? Or, does our once-removed possession of her (as symbol, as myth, as masterpiece) bring us closer to genuine connection & communion with her?

Cindy Sherman addresses themes of (mis)appropriation, reproduction, (re)presentation, fragmentation, (de)mythification, denotation, (self)promotion, (self)realization. Critics of the past would have had us believe these are tricks, devices that fool the eye and this, once gleaned, should result in a reduction of pleasure. But instead of "growing weary of the song" our pleasure and wonder, it seems, grow along with our respect - Respect for the multiplicity, the plurality, the layers of meaning that have been so shamelessly borrowed, appropriated, indeed, sometimes stolen.

What we sense from Lada Gaga is an urgent need to express the Outrageous, the Untoward, the Unfettered, the previously Unimagined. Like Erica Jong's Isadora Wing & Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander, she has energized, re-contextualized, and denuded her physique to create a new kind of sexuality, one that we, perhaps, don't yet have the language or vocabulary to describe or deconstruct.

While I agree with Paglia that we are seeing the death of the Sexual Revolution as we have come to know it ¹ - and that Lady Gaga symbolizes the flame-out of its star-burst - it's just as possible that what she signals is the spark, albeit almost imperceptible, of new one.

10 Questions on Poets & Technology_by Collin Kelley

A must-read @ Very Like a Whale by poet, novelist, playwright and journalist Collin Kelley:

---

"The internet, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites, iPad, iPod, podcasts, digital video and who knows what else. What do they all mean for the poet qua poet? For Poetry? Is it still pretty much where the Gutenberg press left it? Is Poetry technology-proof? In our fearless ongoing quest to exploit other people’s wisdom on poetry-related subjects, we are posing ten questions to a group of illustrious contemporary poets on this topic. This week’s responder is Collin Kelley.

7. Technology is enabling poets today to take poetry off the page in ways that were previously inconceivable. Either comment on this piece by Tom Konyves or provide a link to and comments on a different piece of work that uses technology to take the poem off the page.

CC. Most computers now have the ability to make a sound recording, which is uploadable as a podcast in a matter of minutes. I started doing that on MySpace four or five years ago. Sites like YouTube and Vimeo (which doesn’t have nearly as many content restriction as YouTube) has turned anyone with basic knowledge of editing software into a filmmaker and many poets are creating videos for their work and posting it around the Interwebs. 

Poets are collaborating with artists and musicians to move their words off the page and into different arenas. Poet Steven Reigns has created installations of his work and created photography exhibits that incorporate words and images. Musician and poet Vanessa Daou created an interactive website that allows the user to hear, read and cut and paste her words into new forms" 

We Are Learning to Exploit the Amazing Plasticity of the Brain

We Are Learning to Exploit the Amazing Plasticity of the Brain

Godskitchen - Ibiza Trance Chillout: incl. my new music w/ Blank & Jones + music by Armin van Buuren, Tiesto vs Cary Brothers, The Grid

Godskitchen: Ibiza Trance Chillout

TRACKLISTING

01. Ferry Corsten – Visions of Blue
02. Jes - Ghost (Lime Chill Remix)
03. Guru Josh Project – Infinity 2008 (Steen Thottrup Remix)
04. Blank & Jones - Heart Of Wax (with Vanessa Daou) (Original Mix)
05. Bobina feat. R Kenga – That’s What I Did For You (Sensorica Remix)
06. The Grid – Flotation
07. Lange – Home
08. Cosmic Gate feat. Aruna – Under Your Spell (Original Mix)
09. 4 Strings - Catch A Fall (Breakbeat Mix)
10. Marco V – Coming Back (Nic Chagall Remix)
11. Parker & Hanson – Aim High, Shoot Low (Instrumental)
12. Armin van Buuren - Sound Of Goodbye (EDX's Indian Summer Remix)
13. Alan Connor - Sun Went Down (Simon Sinfield Remix)
14. Tiesto vs Cary Brothers – Ride (Tiesto Remix)
15. BT – Rose of Jericho (BT’s Deus Ex Machina Mix)

Vanessa Daou: Joe Sent Me - Review by Author Graham Reid

"My dad always used the phrase "Joe sent me", it was the old password to get into illegal bars and speakeasies and the implication was that you were gaining access to the illicit, and therefore rather seductive, world on the other side of the door.

Vanessa Daou's breathy, sexually-fueled electronica offers an entry to that kind of world. Her music oozes sensuality, suggests forbidden pleasures, and promises a very enjoyable, safely hedonistic time indeed where the lights are dim and the outline of entwined bodies writhe in slo-mo.

Yep, Daou delivers a wonderfully seductive line in electro-sexual-noir and her '94 Zipless is an Essential Elsewhere album.

But there has always been more to New Yorker Daou than just purple sexuality: she has a poetic sensibility and her albums often include spoken word (whispered word) pieces over a soundbed of soft electronica. Here on Hurricanes she weaves a fragmented narrative of uncertainty and confidence, masculine and feminine, and of the power of giving oneself to love over a bed of distorted keyboards and ticking percussion.

But mostly here are aural signifiers of sex and sensuality with images of beds, "all the pleasures of the tongue", love among the litter, hot skin, and a speakeasy where the password is "sin".

These images, imagistic songs and narratives taken together address existential issues, the nature and dangers of the emotional life, all wrapped in warm, hazy, jazz-influenced grooves and tone poems where a soft saxophone weaves a melodic line line (Love Lives in the Dark), angular drums keep you on edge and electronic keyboards lull you gently.

Daou's music is hypnotic, European in consciousness with a steamy Latin quality. It's quite something."

Read more @ Elsewhere

The Rockologist: The Women Who Have Rocked My World

"They say that the voice of a woman can be enough to soothe both the savage beast in man, as well as serve as proverbial nails on a chalkboard.

Nowhere has this been more true over the years than in music. My own relationship with women in music over the years has been, well let's just say that as in life, it's been complicated.

The first time I can remember falling in love with a woman's voice was when as a pre-teen boy I first heard Grace Slick sing "White Rabbit" with the Jefferson Airplane. Even though I nary understood a thing that Grace was talking about with all her talk about pills that made you either larger or small, there was still something about her sweet, yet seductive voice that made me really want to fall down that particular rabbit hole.

Even so, I would grow to develop a certain love/hate relationship with the various women of rock over the years as I grew older. For every Janis Joplin or Aretha Franklin who were able to touch some unrealized yearning deep within my soul, or for every Ronnie Spector who was able to light the flame of innocent, unconditional romantic love — there would be those angry feminist singers who could just as quickly extinguish it.

...

When it comes to pure out and out eroticism, no one has ever communicated this as perfectly as Vanessa Daou did on her tragically slept on, Erica Jong-inspired album Zipless.

And this is the point where I guess I apologize for taking you through a personal mix-tape of my own fantasies.

But hell yeah. Damn, would I like to get with a girl like this:

On the other end of Vanessa Daou's pure sexuality, lies the innocent pre-"Cloudbusting" romanticism of Kate Bush. Before Kate got corrupted by the eighties New Wave of weird chicks like Lene Lovich, this was the "Dorothy in Oz" sort of girl every guy dreams of."

Read more