Vanessa Daou: Joe Sent Me (Daou)

 |   |  1 min read

Vanessa Daou: Love Lives in the Dark
Vanessa Daou: Joe Sent Me (Daou)

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-fuelled 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. 

Available from Daou's website here.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

The Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Darkest Light, The Best of (Strut)

The Lafayette Afro-Rock Band: Darkest Light, The Best of (Strut)

As I understand it (and I've never heard of these guys before) this band was a loose affiliation of ex-pat US musicians who got together in France in the Seventies and delivered such primo funky... > Read more

Popstrangers: Antipodes (Unspk)

Popstrangers: Antipodes (Unspk)

Because international writers can often take a more dispassionate view of New Zealand culture -- witness the difference between local and overseas reviews of The Hobbit; ours mostly loved it,... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

DOWN AT THE END OF LONELY STREET by PETER BROWN and PAT BROESKE: The rise and fall of the King

DOWN AT THE END OF LONELY STREET by PETER BROWN and PAT BROESKE: The rise and fall of the King

With the second volume of Peter Guralnick’s definitive two-part biography of Elvis, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley there would seem little reason to be interested in this... > Read more

Son of Dave: '02' (Kartel/Rhythmethod)

Son of Dave: '02' (Kartel/Rhythmethod)

In the last couple of years this UK-based Canadian-born singer-songwriter (aka Ben Darvill, formerly of Crash Test Dummies) has conjured up the spirit and sound of old bluesmen punctuated with raw... > Read more