Dirty Girl Things
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Number One-Hundred-Seventy-Three
Alison Goldfrapp: ethereal girl
Alison Goldfrapp has influenced Madonna, resuscitated glam fashion and performed live shows wearing hotpants and a horse’s tail - quite some going for a shy, mysterious former convent girl. Interview by Richard Benson. Photographs by Serge Leblon
Back in the autumn of 2005, Madonna invited Alison Goldfrapp, former convent-school girl, two-million-record-selling singer and extremely reluctant celebrity, to a party. A few months earlier, Madonna had been photographed taking Supernature, Alison’s then current album, to a Pilates class; at the party, she clasped Alison’s hand, and told her she just loved it. Not long afterwards, Alison was reading a magazine and came across a picture of her recent host wearing a sexy outfit with a jaunty military wedge cap. It was almost identical to one that Alison - who is known for her original stage costumes - had been filmed and photographed in while promoting Supernature.
Alison Goldfrapp: ‘Other people have to do things I would no way do, like do eight billion interviews a day, and smile constantly whatever they feel’
‘I thought, “No - it’s Madonna! Why would she…”’ Alison says, bemused, when asked about her influence on Madonna and, indeed, several other global superstars. ‘I don’t quite believe it. It’s flattering, you know, but… too weird.’ Alison Goldfrapp’s speech tends to trail off embarrassedly when you ask her questions like this, but they are justified - at one point Madonna’s shift in music and style prompted music industry people to refer to her as ‘Oldfrapp’. Kylie Minogue, Gwen Stefani and Rachel Stevens have also been heavily influenced by Alison Goldfrapp; Chris Martin asked Goldfrapp to tour with Coldplay; the reason Kate Moss currently looks like a glam-rock star is that fashion designers’ spring collections were inspired by the glam-rock-ish look that Alison invented. And, in 2006, she received fashion’s unofficial seal of approval when Mario Testino photographed her for Vogue.
Alison, a fine-art graduate in her late thirties, is the vocalist in a musical duo called, confusingly, Goldfrapp; her collaborator, Will Gregory, is a classically trained musician in his early forties. They may sound unlikely pop star material, but they have a dozen top-40 singles, three US dance chart number ones, three platinum albums and Mercury, Grammy and Brit nominations to their name. The success is all the more remarkable given the nature of their music, which mixes influences ranging from Ennio Morricone film soundtracks to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s experimental electronic music to the 1970s pop of Marc Bolan and the New Seekers. Alison’s vocals, simultaneously breathy and steely (imagine Kate Bush singing the Cabaret soundtrack in a disco-ish style, and it being good) complement lyrics (all by her) that somehow tease sexiness and romance from unusual, even sinister subjects. Among their biggest hits are songs - both party staples - referencing Baudelaire (Ooh La La) and experiments on rats’ nervous systems (Strict Machine). You can imagine Madonna hearing it for the first time and feeling about 105 years old.
We meet at brunchtime at Julie’s restaurant in Notting Hill. Alison, who is passing through London en route from her cottage in Bath to Paris, arrives on time with two armfuls of shopping bags. She is petite at 5ft 2in, with big eyes under a mop of natural blond ringlets, and a kindly but slightly self-conscious air that at first makes her averse to eye-contact. Her clothes are fashionable but low key - black drainpipe jeans, white trainers, white T-shirt, grey lambswool cardigan, a bit of chunky silver jewellery, and light make-up with heavy mascara. The main thing you notice is her hair; when she is uncomfortable answering a question, she pulls her large wool scarf up over her chin and tugs at a ringlet, as if it were attached to the bit of brain containing the answer.
She finds interviews difficult because a troubled adolescence (she will not give her age, but in 2006 she admitted to being 37) left her convinced no one would ever be ‘remotely interested’ in her, and with a complex about talking to people. When Goldfrapp’s debut album, Felt Mountain, was released in 2000, her first interviews literally gave her nightmares, and although she has got better at it, she still dislikes the self-promotion. It is the main reason why she doesn’t mind other people following her lead and making more money than she might do. ‘They have to do so many things I would no way do, like tour for a ridiculous amount of time, and do eight billion interviews a day, and they have to smile constantly whatever they feel, and I couldn’t do that. Also they can smile and sing at the same time. I always think that’s really clever, that grinning and singing. I can’t do it.’
This seems strange, given the theatricality of her live shows. Alison effectively approaches Goldfrapp as an art project, with the artwork, concerts and videos (their first in 2000, for the single Lovely Head, was directed by the Turner Prize-winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans) being representations of the world evoked by the music. Designed and sometimes made by Alison, the costumes worn by her and her dancers have recently included horses’ heads made out of mirror fragments, horses’ tails attached to hotpants, dog masks and very British combinations of functional (uniforms, boiler suits, leotards) and camp (feather boas, bright colours, everything worn rather tight).
This is all really about personas, of course. For the last two albums, Alison created a highly sexual, vampy character that got somewhat out of control when people began accusing her of being sexually aggressive, or asking if she did the hoovering in her stilettos. ‘I felt slightly uncomfortable that people wanted me to be that oversexual image all the time. I was slightly naive in that I didn’t think people would take it that seriously or be so interested in what I was like offstage.’ It was also high maintenance. On the last tour she ended up having her make-up done for four hours and thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ And then people would be poking and tucking bits in - ‘You know,’ she says, as if I might have been poked and tucked by make-up people on my way here, ‘when you just think f*** off. People constantly asking about your shoes. You don’t feel in control. I’m bored with it now, and I want to concentrate on the music more.’
Apart from anything else, she is not over-keen on the anxiety induced by having to look sexy in public, and can see why so many women in music crack up. ‘You’re looking at photos of yourself all the time, and talking about yourself in interviews all day,’ she says, tugging on a ringlet. ‘Then you go into a newsagent and there are all those magazines saying which women look “right” and which ones look “wrong” - it’s horrible. I find it depressing. But you can’t help but be made very aware of how you look. It’s not a healthy thing to do, really.’
For Goldfrapp’s new album, Seventh Tree, she has eschewed hyper-glamour for a more gentle, folky, rural mood. The music is perhaps more varied and innovative than on the previous three albums, but the melodies are if anything stronger; at least one song, Happiness, is guaranteed to have crowds singing with their arms aloft at festivals all summer. ‘I was always interested in doing something that was very English and also very European,’ she says. ‘But for this one, we talked a lot about Americana, dappled sunlight… the way that a lot of music and films from the 1970s had a combination of bleakness and incredible optimism.’
Goldfrapp on stage: in vamp mode, 2004
Bleakness and optimism come up quite a lot in the Goldfrapp world. A couple of times Alison talks about the blend of naivety and darkness that characterises the English countryside, and that she finds attractively depicted in British horror films from the 1960s and 70s. The video for the new single, A&E, featuring Alison wearing a pure white dress while men who seem to be made of leaves ritualistically dance around her, is deliberately reminiscent of the original Wicker Man. She remembers such films from her childhood, but she also has mixed personal memories of rural England. ‘The countryside was dark and weird. If you’ve grown up in London it’s hard to see that. In some ways it is still idyllic - I had a lot of freedom, running around in the woods - but it is also strange, with a lot of unsavoury characters.’
Alison Goldfrapp was born in the London suburb of Enfield, the youngest of six children - some had already left home by the time she was born, and the next child up was a sister 10 years her senior. Her father, Nick, was an ‘eccentric, romantic’ man from an upper-middle-class family who had been forced to join the Army as an officer straight from school. When he married Alison’s mother, a working-class nurse called Isabella but known as Pat, the family ostracised him for years. He left the Army and ended up working for the Spastics Society and English Heritage, writing and painting in his spare time - Alison thinks she takes after him.
The Goldfrapps - she says it is their real name - moved around a lot, living in cities and on farms and ‘lots of different places’, before moving to Alton in Hampshire when Alison was small. Jane Austen had lived nearby (Alison didn’t read the books but liked visiting the old house), although the story that local children are really brought up on is that of eight-year-old Fanny Adams, notoriously murdered in 1867. The Goldfrapps’ house overlooked the meadow where she was killed.
Her parents led an unusual, bohemian life. Pat, who looked after people with mental illnesses, would invite former patients to the house to visit. And sometimes, on a night with a full moon, Nick would take the family down to the sea and get them to jump in (’I did wonder what we were doing, but I quite enjoyed it’ ), and other nights would usher them into the woods, explaining to them what all the sounds were that they could hear. Her father also played classical music to the children so they could discuss how it made them feel; Alison had a ‘eureka moment’ at the age of eight while listening to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.
Her siblings were sent to private schools and went on to unconventional careers (Alison will not discuss them, but says they are all close), and so for Alison, Nick and Pat decided to try a convent school - Pat was/is a churchgoing Christian, and felt it would be a good start. Little Alison loved it, saying as many Hail Marys as possible, and spending all her pocket money on blue enamelled Madonnas. Most importantly, she discovered her strong soprano voice, and told everyone she wanted to be a professional singer. ‘It [singing] just felt good. I was awful at everything else.’
Things took a bad turn when, at the age of 12, Alison failed the entrance exam for the convent’s senior school. She was sent to the local comprehensive, where the children seemed scary, the teachers were apathetic and she hid her vulnerability with naughtiness: glue-sniffing experiments, hitching lifts to school in army trucks, a self-pricked ink tattoo. This is when talking first became tricky. To fit in she dropped her semi-posh accent, but that meant she felt awkward when talking to her parents. And on top of that, she decided she hated her teeth. With the lonely innovation of a teenager, she worked out a way of talking that involved opening her mouth as little as possible. ‘I just used to slur and mumble, and couldn’t believe anyone would be the slightest bit interested in me at all.’ These days her accent drifts between RP and estuary.
She hated all 1980s music, apart from Kate Bush and Prince, which she adored. She yearned to be a singer, but - she lived in Alton. At 16 she moved out of home to live with her friend who had been given a council house in the next village, and at 17 she fled to live in a London squat. She had lessons with some singing teachers whose advertisements she had seen in newspapers, but they were always odd. One old lady in Battersea scolded her for her diction, and moaned about the awfulness of the Beatles’ slangy lyrics; another sat on her, allegedly to teach her to breathe properly; yet another kept asking her to imagine she was a tree.
Eventually, after a series of low-paid jobs and a couple of years singing with a dance troupe in Belgium, she enrolled as a mature student on a fine-art degree course at Middlesex Polytechnic. Her final show involved a performance piece in which she milked a cow while yodelling - the idea being to make the mundane iconic by presenting it as art. The yodels caught the attention of a visitor who happened to be in a successful band called Orbital, and he signed her up as a singer. After sessions with various other bands and musicians, she spent the mid-1990s singing with Tricky, a former colleague of Massive Attack, and then tried making music of her own.
Initially, Alison could not get to the sound she heard in her head, until a mutual friend gave a tape of one of her unfinished songs to Will Gregory. The son of an actress and opera chorus-line singer, Gregory had appalled his peers at York University, where he studied classical music, with his enthusiasm for spaghetti western soundtracks. Having played with the 1980s megastars Tears for Fears in their pomp, and been a member of Michael Nyman’s band, when Gregory met Alison he was producing film and television music in a studio near Bath, and ‘getting fed up with composing music for programmes about badgers’. They swapped ideas about the sort of music they wanted to emulate, and began collaborating in the studio; although at first Gregory did the string and brass arrangements, they both play keyboards, and these days do everything together.
The band Goldfrapp consists of Alison Goldfrapp and the classically trained Will Gregory
As for the live shows, Alison initially made the costumes herself, adapting clothes she found in secondhand shops, and ironing the dancers’ outfits in the dressing-room before she went on stage. She has a wardrobe person and seamstresses to help now, but the ideas are still all her own. Her favourite looks are glamour in unusual settings or otherworldly romance - Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, and Biba.
Alison and Will’s is a working arrangement - that is, entirely platonic. She lives with her Russian Blue cat in a cottage on the outskirts of Bath, but is moving back to London because she misses her friends, many of whom are in the music and arts world there. She used to go to the odd fashion show, but has avoided them lately because, she says with mock-weariness, ringlet-tugging again, she would ‘have to dress up, and I can’t be bothered. Someone’s going to say, “Oh, Alison’s not brushed her hair and hasn’t got make-up on, and is only wearing trainers and a deeply unfashionable jumper”, and I can’t be arsed.’
She will not talk about her personal relationships because she has done interviews in the past where her comments have come out wrong and upset people, but she is open about her own feelings. When I ask what she thinks is her biggest fault is, she says, ‘God, there are so many!’ and then says she hangs on to things too much, so if someone upsets her she analyses it, when it would be simpler to let it go. She also thinks life might be easier if she was less stubborn, and she gets scared of getting hurt in relationships, of revealing too much. ‘It’s the old cliché - hold things back so you won’t get hurt, then realise that if you do, you don’t get anywhere.’
She used to think she might want children, but has decided against it; she likes her career, and because the success came quite late, she was scared of taking time off. ‘Then I went through a phase of regretting it, and wishing I had had a child, but now I think it’s fine. I don’t think it makes me any less of a woman, or a selfish person.’
Selfish?
‘Well, I think some women try to make you feel you’re not all female because you haven’t given birth. There are a lot of prejudices. Some women think women who have animals are deeply sad, because what they really want is a child. Mind you, there’s probably an element of truth in that. I think my cat is adorable, and I probably give it too much fresh chicken. Maybe if I had a child I’d be giving the chicken to the child.’
Her own mother - Nick died of a heart attack several years ago - is proud of Alison’s success, and despite misgivings about her daughter’s interest in paganism and those horse-head outfits, occasionally comes to Goldfrapp gigs. Often she asks Alison when she thinks she will meet ‘Prince Charming’ and have babies. ‘The other day she said [adopts a sort of kindly, Joyce Grenfell voice], “Alison, you know so many gay people! How do you know so many gay people?” I said, “Mum, I don’t know that many gay people. There are a lot of gay people in the world!”
‘She said, “What about that man called Robert? You said you were going to see Robert in New York.” I said, “He’s gay, Mum. Sorry.” “Oh dear.”’ As she tells these stories, Alison smiles with the rumpled affection of someone with a sense of the absurdity of family life. It’s funny - her style and music may be fantastical, but in a strange way her eye for human foibles reminds you of Victoria Wood.
A typically theatrical Goldfrapp stage show at T in the Park in Scotland in 2006
A couple of weeks after the interview in Julie’s, I go to see Alison and Will in their studio, a big 1960s bungalow with a long drive on the edge of a village outside Chippenham in Wiltshire. Will, a softly spoken professorial man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, makes mugs of tea (’Are you a strong tea man?’ ) and offers me Sainsbury’s Florentines specially bought for my visit (’Do help yourself to these ridiculously over-the-top biscuits’ ), and we sit down in a huge living-room filled with musical equipment.
For people who make such other-worldly music, they have a strikingly practical relationship. When I ask if they got on immediately, they both hesitate, and then Will says, ‘We got on with it’; they were both into their thirties and knew the perils of wasting time. Do they have rows? ‘Oh yes, frequently,’ Alison says, ‘but not about the music. Just about things like who gets to go home first and who’s going on holiday.’ If they disagree about a musical idea, Will says, the person with the idea is allowed to pursue it until they decide they are wrong, or the other person accepts it.
They say, slightly grumpily, that being of opposite gender makes no difference at all until they do interviews, when journalists spend 40 minutes asking Will about music and then ask Alison a question about her frock. (’Cultural stereotypes about the composer and the singer,’ Alison says. ‘Boring.’ ) The point is, Will says, the music ‘only happens when we are together. Sometimes we try to do preparation but… to take it anywhere we both need to be there.’ In conversation, he listens quite raptly to her stories about herself and her music, and she calls on him (’Will! Help!’ ) when she gets tangled up trying to express something about the music idea. ‘Will always explains things wonderfully,’ she says, releasing a ringlet and then pointing out that we should be admiring a spectacular mist outside. ‘Look, look how it wafts! Like old-fashioned fog!’
It all seems very Goldfrapp, mugs of tea and Florentine biscuits and the romantic possibilities of fog. It is also very English, in that it somehow mingles ethereal whimsy and doughty down-to-earthness. As I travel home, I remember a conversation from our first meeting about the song Happiness. The song was sparked by the self-help groups and pop-therapy culture she noticed when Goldfrapp were playing in Los Angeles last year. ‘I have this instant response to them,’ Alison said, and mimed vomiting. ‘F*** off! I’m fine thanks! Just give us a glass of wine and a fag, and everything’ll be fine.’ When I asked her if she often felt that she was the normal one and everyone else was mad, she said, ‘No! I always feel like I’m the one who’s bonkers!’
But if that’s true, I think she is confusing being bonkers with being honest; Alison’s reactions to things mostly seem to be the instinctive emotional ones that most English people learn to keep in check, which is why, if anything, Goldfrapp’s music sounds like the wistful melancholy and salacious desire that English people have pickling inside them as a result of all that keeping-in. If Alison and Will’s imitators understood that, we might have better pop music. As it is, we must be content to make the most of them.
The album ‘Seventh Tree’ is out on February 25. Goldfrapp are playing at the Royal Festival Hall on April 18, and touring the UK in June
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Number One-Hundred-Thirty-Three
Listen as these artists shine.
This is an occasional feature focusing on musicians that will capture both your ear and your soul with their music and melodies. And when you hear them, you’ll stop what you’re doing...and listen.
SomaFM offers 11 unique channels of listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio broadcasting from San Francisco. These choices are from Groove Salad, a nicely chilled plate of ambient beats and grooves.
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Ulrich Schnauss “Far Away Trains Passing By”
Alex Cortiz “Magnifico!”
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B-Tribe “5”
The Higher Intelligence Agency “Colourform”
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PhuturePrimitive “Sub Conscious”
Tosca “J.A.C.”
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Global Communication “76:14”
Man Ray “Volume 3”
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Number Seventy-Three
I’M A GIGOLO (Wake Up and Dream, 1929) ----Cole Porter
I should like you all to know,
I’m a famous gigolo.
And of lavender, my nature’s got just a dash in it.
As I’m slightly undersexed,
You will always find me next
To some dowager who’s wealthy rather than passionate.
Go to one of those night club places
And you’ll find me stretching my braces
Pushing ladies with lifted faces ‘round the floor.
But I must confess to you
There are moments when I’m blue.
And I ask myself whatever I do it for.
I’m a flower that blooms in the winter,
Sinking deeper and deeper in snow.
I’m a baby who has
No mother but jazz,
I’m a gigolo.
Ev’ry morning, when labor is over,
To my sweet-scented lodgings I go,
Take the glass from the shelf
And look at myself,
I’m a gigolo.
I get stocks and bonds
From faded blondes
Ev’ry twenty-fifth of December.
Still I’m just a pet
That men forget
And only tailors remember.
Yet when I see the way all the ladies
Treat their husbands who put up the dough,
You cannot think me odd
If then I thank God
I’m a gigolo.
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Number Sixty-Nine
The most glamourous, elegant and sophisticatedly wild event of the 21st Century, The Rakehell’s Revels has taken place every Tuesday since 2004. It is renowned --- notorious, even --- for attracting the best in-the-know society, from Hollywood starlets to scrubbed-up students, to “the most beautiful room in London” (Cecil Beaton) for an intensely heady evening of high sparkling swinging wit, dancing, cocktails, pointed conversation and worse. In a glorious celebration of the Golden Age of Swing, Style, and Subtle wickedness.
1920’s - 1940’s GLAMOUR
EVERY TUESDAY
THE GRILL ROOM
CAFE ROYAL
68 ROYAL STREET
LONDON W1
10PM—3AM
£5
STRICTLY THE MOST ELEGANT DRESS
More about Rakehell’s Revels here and here.
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RAKEHELL’S COMPILATION
Extending our fight against the vulgarity of the modern world—where beauty doesn’t exist, where glamour is drunken reality nobodies, where going out is sweaty, dark, and antisocial—THE RAKEHELL’S REVELS is launching a compilation of the best of music from the club. Everyone can now own a little piece of the clubbing sensation and uniquely beautiful experience that until now, only a select few have been allowed to find…
Featuring classics and rarities, foot-stomping swingers and toe-tapping bops, haunting melodies and jumping brilliance from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, by the likes of Duke Ellington, Fred Astaire, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and Louis Jourdan. It’s a dance record—a romantic record—a funny record—and it has 21 incredible tracks. Any appreciator of music, or anybody swayed by even just the smallest nostalgia, cannot fail to love these superb and exciting songs.
The compilation is available now… look for it!
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Number Fifty-Seven
Listen as these artists shine.
This is an occasional feature focusing on musicians that will capture both your ear and your soul with their music and melodies. And when you hear them, you’ll stop what you’re doing...and listen.
SomaFM offers 11 unique channels of listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio broadcasting from San Francisco. These choices are from Groove Salad, a nicely chilled plate of ambient beats and grooves.
Note: If you love internet radio, start counting the days until it might be gone. From the Washington Post:
SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson says small operators who play music and don’t try to sell ads “will have a hard time paying the rates” and that he thinks there are too many internet radio stations now, so it’s OK if a bunch of them go off the air. The heyday of advertising-free Internet radio might be coming to an end. SoundExchange is the royalty agency that was formed by the RIAA after they successfully got legislation passed in the US requiring high royalty fees for internet radio stations. Simson and SoundExchange are heavily driven by the major record labels. They don’t want to competition from independent webcasters playing great music from independent and unsigned artists, because it’s a threat to the major labels’ business models.
SomaFM has a sample message here you can use if you’d like to send to your elected representatives requesting that they reject this effort from the major labels. You can also go here and send a message to your elected representatives.
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Zero One: “I Like That” from their debut cd Zero One.
You can also listen to samples from their debut cd here.
Rena Jones: “The Passing Storm” from the Driftwood cd.
A multitalented composer, producer, audio engineer, sound designer, violinist, cellist, and vocalist, Rena Jones has been described as “the revered daughter of San Francisco’s electronic music scene”—OEM Radio.
“An anomaly in modern electronic music, she writes, performs, produces, programs, electronics and plays virtuosic strings all by herself. In a music scene dominated by men, she has proven herself to be more capable and more original than her contemporaries. Not content to be an addition or continuation of anyone else’s work, she has created a modern electronic statement, which is entirely unique. Her work is sophisticated, delicate, touching, and personal. The music connects to people instantly in an emotional way, and allows them the freedom for an experience of depth as they journey through the worlds she has created.” Bluetech
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Afterlife: “Clear Blue Sky” from the Speck of Gold cd.
Nacho Sotomayor: “I Can Feel Your Heart” from the La Roca 1999/2004 cd.
Nacho Sotomayor, born and bread in Villanueva del Arzobispo, Jaen (Spain). During the early 80´s he moved to Granada to continue with his Art studies and deepen his already very promissing knowledge of music. During the following two decades his constant drive and admiration for the way new technologies were being applayed with in the musical realm, lead him together with his brother to form an electronic based sound due, called INTRO. This lead to the release of four rather unusual and innovating projects, very refreshing for the spanish record industry (Visiones,1994; Eden, 1996; Melismas, 1998; Dies Irae, 2001). In 1995, Nacho Sotomayor settled down in Madrid and began his outstanding solo career, combining his own projects (Traxforma CD, 1997) with, remixes, advertising productions and motion picture sound tracks.
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Crazy Penis (England’s Best Kept Secret): “3 Play It Cool” from the Midnight Soul cd.
Art of Noise: “Camilla” from the Ambient Collection.
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Number Forty-Six
Talk2Me. Presents from the future. Wireless.
You know what you like to hear but what do you like to feel? King Crimson, Biggie Smalls? What about Flight of the Bumblebee or Slayer? Talk2Me works with not just music but any audio. You can enhance that erotic film, or podcast. Bring that long distance relationship closer by using it with your phone or video conferencing. Use it with a partner; Talk2Me contains a microphone to turn vocalizations into vibrations. Use it in Karaoke Mode or just whisper sweet nothings.
With Talk2Me even clean talk is dirty.
Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Number Forty
Listen as three artists shine.
This is an occasional feature focusing on musicians that will capture both your ear and your soul with their music and melodies. And when you hear them, you’ll stop what you’re doing...and listen.
Secret Agent on SomaFM is featured on iTunes internet radio in the “Eclectic” category and is commercial-free and listener-supported.
Jan des Bouvrie is not a musician, but he has great taste in music and knows what he likes. And you will too. He’s compiled a great selection of songs by artists for his (and your) listening enjoyment. In particular, ”Blue Bar” by Afterlife, ”Where Do I Begin” by Shirley Bassey, ”Experience” by Nacho Sotomayor, ”Josiane” by MC Sultan”, and ”Prelude”.
Talvin Singh‘s OK album displays his cross-cultural range in a sophisticated Miles Davis sorta way. “Traveller” and “Mombasstic” are perfect examples where you’ll listen again and again.
A Reminiscent Drive‘s Ambrosia album has some real gems including “Ambrosia”, “Unconditional Love”, and “Unseen World” to set the mood.
Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Monday, December 25, 2006
Number Twenty-Seven
Listen as three Independents shine.
This is an occasional feature focusing on musicians that will capture both your ear and your soul with their music and melodies. And when you hear them, you’ll stop what you’re doing...and listen.
Secret Agent on SomaFM is featured on iTunes internet radio in the “Eclectic” category and is commercial-free and listener-supported, so feel free to send them some holiday cheer.
Thievery Corporation
You’ve probably heard their songs...somewhere...commercials, an episode of the West Wing, a MTV promo, or even the movie “Garden State”. But chances are that Thievery Corporation is probably one of the best kept secrets from Washington DC. The instrumentals and beats in their music will keep your attention as they cross a spectrum of downtempo, electronica, jazz, Indian classical, and Brazilian beats all fused together. “The Hong Kong Triad” & “Lebanese Blonde” (from The Mirror Conspiracy album) and “The Glass Bead Game” (from the Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi album) are definitive examples of that distinctive Thievery Corporation sound. Check ‘em out.
TDR
One of Italy’s finest, The Dining Rooms, has a distinctive sound which blends jazz, electronica, and ambient. Singles like “Invocation”, “Cosi Ti Amo”, & “Catania City Blues” (from the Numero Deux album) and “Prigionieri Del Deserto”, “La Citta Nuda”, “Astro Black”, & “You” (from the Tre album) will make you believe!
And…
Torso
Torso has some brilliant and sexy tunes. “Acid Jazz with a Hip hop sense. Miles meets Fatboy Slim”—Broadjam.com, July 2005. The Boston duo blends funky, cool jazz that goes from downbeat one moment to a 60 mph heartbeat the next and then finally, slowly rounds the curve on Lake Shore Drive on a warm Chicago summer afternoon. “My Pretty Antidote” defines that unique Torso kind of cool in the way that Miles Davis did with the “Birth of the Cool”. “My Pretty Antidote”, “Alpha Almighty”, “Sanjibel”, “Sky Train”, & “King Rabbit” (from the Percolatin’ with Lucifer album). Take a listen to a complete listing of their tunes at Broadjam, the connection to independent music, by doing a search on the artist name.
Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Number Fourteen
So you think your iPod playlist is pretty good? Exactly how good? In terms of O, do you think 1? 2? 3? More?
And which songs hit the spot for you? Does Massive Attack do it for you? Goldfrapp? Hed Kandi’s Winter Chill ‘06? Joi? Or are you more along the lines of Gotan Project’s “Last Tango in Paris”?
Now you can find out for yourself with OhMiBod. Just attach your iPod and don’t forget your Acsexsories.
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Update (2006Oct26): The inimitable Lazy Geisha, has the definitive and the most delicious review of the OhMiBod here.
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
Friday, August 25, 2006
Number Nine
Listen
This marks the beginning of an ongoing feature focusing on musicians that will capture both your ear and your soul with their music and melodies. And when you hear them, you’ll stop what you’re doing...and listen.
“Secret Agent on SomaFM” is featured on iTunes internet radio in the “Eclectic” category and is commercial-free and listener-supported.
Henri Salvador is 89 years old. But he sings like he’s in his 30s. The song “Il Fait Dimanche” from his album “Chambre Avec Vue” is both disarming and timeless. It comes along like sexy little number and then you’re hooked. His music seduces you.
He’s had international acclaim as a composer, arranger, guitarist, singer, and comic almost everywhere except the United States (even despite an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956). He’s due.
Barry Adamson’s music has been described as “dangerous, approach with extreme caution”. And that edge you hear, is the sound from the 51st State where he is the sole resident and we have the great fortune to listen to his creations. “Goddess of Love” from his album “As Above So Below” is music to enjoy with someone...perfect for those intimate interludes...small talk, drinks...great music to recharge by.
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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant. Unpretentious. Unconventional. ©
