In 2005 New York City multimedia artist Jessica Vale released her debut The Sex Album comprised almost entirely (with the exception of Vale's vocals) of sex sounds from various couples amongst the NYC club scene and manipulated into something haunting, beautiful, sexy, dirty, raw, pretty much everything you could want from what is time and again in reviews referred to as "dark rock" (though it sounds basically like industrial to me). There's a great diversity of work here because there are a few goth/industrial club tracks like Disco Libido, The One Over There Is All Mine, and Sarajevo but then more dark breakbeat-style songs such as The Boy In Black or Breather but some of my favorite songs are really the ones that I think are more in line with Vale's multimedia background with the deeply poetic spoken-word pieces Welcome which is basically an instruction manual on how to fuck and Sweet Sixteen in which Vale as the narrator recounts her sixteenth birthday in which she hung out with a boy, got high, drank, had mediocre sex, got poison ivy, and that was pretty much it. Sweet Sixteen to me might be the best track on the CD and reminds me of the works of Sadie Benning (experimental filmmaker, daughter of James Benning, and former member of Le Tigre) and Bill Brown (filmmaker, photographer, and author). The entire album has a great aesthetic appeal and is great to listen to and just enjoy on a visceral level but there's also a lot of layers that can be pealed away that gives The Sex Album a real complexity, though none of this should come as a surprise given Vale's extensive work in the art and film-making communities. In addition to the regular 11-track actual album the CD also includes four bonus tracks (two remixes and two radio clean tracks). The remixes are both solid though I really found myself drawn more towards Jeff Saphin's remix of Boy In Black which brought the track to another level. The Infinite Volume Remix of the non-album track Disco Boy is certainly delightfully spastic. The last two tracks, clean versions of Disco Libido and Boy In Black certainly serve their purpose of having radio friendly tracks that I think helped Vale and this album's climb up the Billboard Charts but for the regular listener and given the subject matter of the album already they are basically throw away tracks that you can skip at the end. This is a great album to just sit down and chill to or fuck to (and isn't that really essential in anyone's collection?). Favorite Tracks: Welcome, Look Pretty, Sweet Sixteen, Sarajevo, Disco Libido (Radio Mix), and Boy In Black (Saphin Remix)
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Album a Day: Jessica Vale - The Sex Album (Second Edition)
In 2005 New York City multimedia artist Jessica Vale released her debut The Sex Album comprised almost entirely (with the exception of Vale's vocals) of sex sounds from various couples amongst the NYC club scene and manipulated into something haunting, beautiful, sexy, dirty, raw, pretty much everything you could want from what is time and again in reviews referred to as "dark rock" (though it sounds basically like industrial to me). There's a great diversity of work here because there are a few goth/industrial club tracks like Disco Libido, The One Over There Is All Mine, and Sarajevo but then more dark breakbeat-style songs such as The Boy In Black or Breather but some of my favorite songs are really the ones that I think are more in line with Vale's multimedia background with the deeply poetic spoken-word pieces Welcome which is basically an instruction manual on how to fuck and Sweet Sixteen in which Vale as the narrator recounts her sixteenth birthday in which she hung out with a boy, got high, drank, had mediocre sex, got poison ivy, and that was pretty much it. Sweet Sixteen to me might be the best track on the CD and reminds me of the works of Sadie Benning (experimental filmmaker, daughter of James Benning, and former member of Le Tigre) and Bill Brown (filmmaker, photographer, and author). The entire album has a great aesthetic appeal and is great to listen to and just enjoy on a visceral level but there's also a lot of layers that can be pealed away that gives The Sex Album a real complexity, though none of this should come as a surprise given Vale's extensive work in the art and film-making communities. In addition to the regular 11-track actual album the CD also includes four bonus tracks (two remixes and two radio clean tracks). The remixes are both solid though I really found myself drawn more towards Jeff Saphin's remix of Boy In Black which brought the track to another level. The Infinite Volume Remix of the non-album track Disco Boy is certainly delightfully spastic. The last two tracks, clean versions of Disco Libido and Boy In Black certainly serve their purpose of having radio friendly tracks that I think helped Vale and this album's climb up the Billboard Charts but for the regular listener and given the subject matter of the album already they are basically throw away tracks that you can skip at the end. This is a great album to just sit down and chill to or fuck to (and isn't that really essential in anyone's collection?). Favorite Tracks: Welcome, Look Pretty, Sweet Sixteen, Sarajevo, Disco Libido (Radio Mix), and Boy In Black (Saphin Remix)
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