I thought it was time for a new Siouxsie b-day post since I kept reblogging the old one.
Anima Animus was a ‘black sheep’ album for The Creatures and Siouxsie in general. The decision to follow the British club scene brought us the closest thing to Siouxsie ‘going electro’. In addition, it features her voice in it’s best incarnation since it’s noticeable deepening in the 90’s. Her preference for surreal poetry stuck, but she took extra amusement in bringing the chaos. She always had a way with playful b-horror after all; she does it with such confidence and energy that I wish she played a villain in a movie. Mixed with Budgie’s mechanized rhythms, this made heavy-handed 90s sounds like futurepop much more convincing with their edgy thrill-rides.
Forming the album’s whirlwind finale with the villainous epic that was “Experimenting Angel”, “Another Planet” is the most striking moment by far. Siouxsie’s rage turns to luxury, opting to bask in space’s wonders rather than well, destroy things with it’s black holes. With the metallic, slow-drifting fusion of guitar and keyboard, the chill-out tease matches the purr in her voice. The sounds mutate and zoom further beyond as it goes. If the first verse is a sleepy glance at space, the clashing drums and vocals at the end IS space; it’s full expanse. Like it’s nothing, every last sound bursts with the same confidence as Siouxsie. Her lyrics suggest strange beasts and mutations:
They’re coming out the walls / they’re seeping in Three odd eyed tentacles / Speak in forked tongues Sprouting all over me / And blossoming I’m breaking out the walls / I’m coming in
Much more creepy than glamorous, but Siouxsie is thriving in this imagery. She sings like she’s celebrating at the local sci-fi cantina. Something about it is weirdly relaxing. Surprising as it sounds for her, it makes a perfect tribute to sci-fi. This is a song for feeling in-your-element and thanking your inspirations for it.
Even during exciting eras like disco and the new wave, Grace Jones stood out and made many unique acts sound mundane. These were worldwide phenomenons that define the eighties’ myriad influences, but you won’t find anyone quite like Grace within them. That should say something.
Yes, Grace is a ‘muse’ (after all, she had an album with this name; she excels at it). So much appeal with learning her story is the way connects with fellow artists and producers. I felt I’d learn a new connection with every other page in her memoir. Still, I think it’s crucial to note that so much of that ‘larger than life’ character you see in her collabs revolve on her face, voice and personality in the end. None would wind up the same without her. It’s rare for anyone to mold her for real; she absorbs her surroundings, the extravagance of her voice shines through. No matter how poppy, how disco or how ‘weird’ she got, she rolled with it and made herself the life of the party. Grace brings glamor to anything without trying.
Her supposed ‘narrow’ range as a singer didn’t matter so much to me. I was too busy taking awe in her velvet-like elegance and unique dramatic flair. Her monotone brought hypnotic classics like “Private Life”, while others can rage with passion; let’s not forget “La Vie En Rose”. So often she comes off as this enigma, yet she can radiate this sense of warmth that draws me back again and again.
Most Grace tributes stick to her Sly/Robbie era, if they acknowledge the music, so I thought I’d break this ‘cycle’ by focusing on other eras this time.
1. “I’ll Find My Way To You” (Muse, 1979)
My defense for Disco Grace goes back years: I had each album on vinyl by 2013 and I wrote about “Autumn Leaves” for THE first MAM post. I see where some criticism comes from, since her delivery can grow awkward and on-the-nose, but I think any 70’s disco fan should take a closer look. This eager, younger Grace should endear true fans anyway, and the disco glamor suited her theatrics. Arrangements from the famed Tom Moulton, both punchy and luxurious, helped support her with every great disco trademark.
The interesting thing about Muse (her ‘lost album’) was the added synths. Not enough to make this ~electro-disco~, but with all the syntoms bouncing around like laser beams this makes a colorful decoration. This way, I got a feel for disco’s range through singular songs.
“Find My Way” demonstrates best, with the synths taking on a breezier tone that flourishes perfectly with the strings and and the lyric’s sweet yearning. The result has a nearly Cinderella feeling, painting dreamy portraits of romance in pastel and Technicolor. Disco as an idyllic walk in the park. I can’t believe this wasn’t a single.
2. “Slave To The Rhythm” (6:36 version / Slave To The Rhythm, 1985)
Never stop the action
Keep it up, keep it up
Anyone who says Grace lost her edge after new wave should hear Slave To The Rhythm. Here, Trevor Horn re-assembles her title hit with more creative measures than many modern remixes. Revolutionary at a time where most mainstream ‘remix albums’ boiled down to ‘make song longer with new drums and bass’.
Trevor’s colorful palette shouldn’t surprise Art of Noise fans, and it’s a perfect fit for Grace given her pop-art aesthetics. You have new age lotion in synth form (“The Crossing”), an operatic dance mix and even a fashionable R&B revamp on music from the Bruton library. (“The Fashion Show”; and I heard every Grace album long before I knew a thing about library music!) Funk from eighties heaven meets surreal spa music from Utopia.
“Slave To The Rhythm” is a flashier example (no, this isn’t the single). Matching the lyrics, Trevor mechanizes the go-go rhythms and Grace’s wordless ‘oohh!’ into an earth-shattering force. You have Chic guitars, an infectious mix between digital and organic beats, and synth horns adding quirky chrome futurism.
Grace seems to command this rhythm like her horde, all while dropping some enigma to reveal the upbeat spirit that brought so much charm to her ‘pop’ era. And before you know it? The most heavenly bridge in all 80’s pop, where gentle guitars and background voices wash over like a fountain. This is the same song? And it FITS? Time to kick myself for the hundredth time over hearing so few Horn productions.
3. “Victor Should Have Been A Jazz Musician” (Inside Story, 1986)
I went to a concert, to see Nina, Simone, The concert was over, there was still a band playing, the rap up…
Hollywood jazz meets sophisti-pop at it’s peak luxury. I’m yet to hear a jazz/pop crossover that captures this much impeccable late-night-cantina romance. Just as “I’ve Done It Again” provided a surprise ballad to close Nightclubbing, “Victor” shows Grace in a wistful, even sensitive light. She plays a dreamer, falling in love and losing herself in this subdued, big-city glamor.
With that sad little keyboard I can feel the guests coming and going, the flickering billboards and a band playing for what feels like forever, serenading everyone. The instrumental break at 3:08 is most hypnotizing with the groovy 80’s guitar that screams of yachts, plus the most haunting trumpet solo I know. Jazz isn’t the first thing I’d expect hearing ‘Grace Jones’ but well… Read that again, this is Grace Jones.
Bulletproof Heart holds a unanimous status as ‘worst Grace album’. I say you should give it a chance if you appreciate her voice and don’t mind a few predictable lyrics. The mechanized late-80’s beats and cavey reverbs are bound to overwhelm certain people, but such kitsch-futuristic antics fit right in with Grace’s flamboyance.
Some critics will lump Bulletproof with Inside Story, but I’d say that was her sophisti-pop/soul album while this is her ‘party’ album. On the other hand, “Seduction” stands out through it’s weirdness. It sits somewhere between nightclub nightmare and demented cave. Gigantic drums tumble in all directions rather than stick to a simple beat; sampling makes trippy, ambiguous distortions on her own backing voices.
Once again, Grace mixes a powerful delivery with warmth and over-the-top fun. Her jumping from giddy monologues to a theatric sung chorus sounds near-effortless. The result demonstrates her nuance as a vocalist just as well as her prime; I’d LOVE to see it live.
“SS” resembles the theme for a b-movie villain, and sure enough: it originates from her villainous role in Vamp. At least two movie mixes exist. This one loosens further with it’s turbulent melody. Leave it to Grace to make groovy 80’s pop verge on gothic.
5. “Devil In My Life” (Hurricane, 2008)
You’re the architect of my destruction
Hurricane is the best ‘comeback’ album I could want. It modernizes the artist’s classic sound without losing any initial charm. It takes a sound that began unique to new places as Grace sings about new topics herself. No covers here, but the auto-biography feel creates it’s own intrigue. This is ever-mysterious Grace revealing her story here, after all. No matter how long she spent away, certain songs resemble a re-arranged lost entry from her new wave heyday.
Remove Grace’s enormous personality and “Devil” stays a unique instrumental. Isolate the drums and they alone mesh trip hop, slo-mo reggae and gritty electropop. Before half-time rhythms were everywhere, this song was fast and slow at once thanks to it’s bursts of distortion and film-worthy suspense. From the sad, smoky piano that opens it to that vulnerable shiver of strings, this had me wishing she dabbled in orchestral sounds more often. (The one other time I recall aside from this era is her thrill-ride of an Avengers theme, “Storm”.)
The strings throbbing with her voice soaring at the end makes this song one of her most emotionally intense. In one corner, she invokes a long-standing inner fear (Devil in my life / Treading on thin ice / slowly mesmerize / always in disguise). In the other, she has her own sinister aura as she observes a seedy gathering (Collaborate while being exploited, And we celebrate by drinking poison).
To make my best summary, I’d call the revival a few loosely connected scenes in one. Like the original new age, it has a looseness and tendency for overlap. Common roots for these artists are 80s-90s retro culture, lo-fi tape scenes, ambient and psychedelia. Many older artists are long-time fans or collectors; others have experience with all-out meditation.
Finally I can share this, made on-and-off over a six-month period. For my second-ever entry in this popular RYM-birthed series, I put great effort into illustrating this loose, wipe-open ‘scene’. (Check out my first one on 80’s library music too.)
Main features:
Intro explaining some origins and influences
Two-part mix, made from popular or influential releases within the niche, plus a few personal faves
A ‘further listening’ section: ‘close but not quite’ entries in the niche, compilations, labels
Many quotes and links for full immersion
It began a simple idea for fun; after all, this is super niche and deserves more interest. Given the surprising lack in canons and communities (I thought all small genres had a subreddit!) though? It got tricky to get ‘definitive’ enough. I had at least three moments bordering on giving up. I struggled to find a good collaborator on RYM, since not many users care about this music. The few who did weren’t so active, so I ‘finished’ it alone.
I figure smaller edits will come, then, but I’m surprised I cut this down and mixed it up as much as I did. So please, check this out and discover some new artists!
How does Kirby, a sugary ‘for babies’ series, endure so much with a teenager like me? In my case, someone who didn’t grow up with it? For me, the escapism. Sometimes it’s a nice break to dive into a fictional world that needs no reason for it’s relentless cheer, or to make sense. A game like Epic Yarn is so set on making you relax and feel it’s warm nostalgia, against all odds and without forcing it, that I have to pay respect. “Staff Credits” demonstrates more than any Kirby music, and not many songs give me such inner peace in general. It was enough for me to get the game used for my old Wii! (“Cool Cave” helped.)
I heard “Credits” at a low point, where I realized those ‘it will be okay!!!’ songs were over-assuming and even ‘good news if you reblog’ posts weren’t working. So, when THAT melody hit (0:37), so elusive but so knowing and ever-fulfilled, it was like the moon lit a cave. It doesn’t assume or promise too much but I preferred this. Nothing but one of the warmest, most loving pianos to grace a video game, with high notes nothing short of precious. It’s a carefree feeling unique to happy childhood activities, but it fell asleep on itself and flew to space. The playground becomes a refuge. I’d put this on to fill the miserable silence or wind down before bed; it was just a good energy to put out there at any time. The definition of ‘sweet dreams’ in song.
Tomita knew his stuff when matching Yarn’s ’storybook’ theme, because “Credits” gets me reminiscing without coming from my past. After all, it’s the exact kind of ‘haunting credits theme’ feeling that would catch my ears all those years ago. I’m looking out the car window in awe, the moon’s peaking in on the night before a holiday. These moments where I felt comfortable with unknown things and noticed the beauty around me. Not everyday that music does this to me.
Dream Land may not exist, but Tomita did such a gorgeous job at capturing it’s harmony that it’s comforting to imagine for a few minutes alone.
Moons And Melodies 