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Today's Artist was fusing jazz, pop, dance grooves, and sexually explicit lyrics, Vanessa Daou may be one of the most daring new artists of the 20th century. Her first two solo singles -- "Give Myself to You" and "Are You Satisfied?" -- reached the Top Ten on the dance charts compiled by Billboard. Initially released on her own label, Lotus Records, Vanessa's debut solo album, Zipless, which featured groove-induced interpretations of Erica Jong's poetry, was reissued by MCA/Universal in the summer of 1995.  N Joy

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Formative years

Daou was born and spent her early childhood in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, relocating in 1984 to attend boarding school in Massachusetts. As a young adult, she attended Vassar College for two years and spent several years in New York City's Hell's Kitchen area before earning a scholarship to study dance at Columbia University. There, she would train with choreographer Eric Hawkins and explore visual art with Barry Moser and poetry with Kenneth Koch, whom she cites as having sparked her interest in spoken word. Daou ultimately graduated cum laude with a visual arts and art history degree from Barnard College/Columbia and frequently appeared in her senior year at Postcrypt Coffeehouse, the university's on-campus poetry lounge.

Early recordings

While still a student, Daou began her career recording for NuGroove Records, one of New York's underground electronica labels. Demos that Daou had recorded caught the attention of two NuGroove DJs, and they invited her to provide guest vocals on a developing track. The experiment led to the label's top-selling single "It Could Not Happen," which later was released on Network Records in the United Kingdom. Daou also performed as "Vandal" at Los Angeles' Stranger Than Fiction rave at the Shrine Auditorium in 1990. Daou's underground success brought her to the attention of Columbia Records, which signed her to a seven-album record deal. Daou, along with a five-piece band released Head Music as The Daou in 1992. An airy fusion of rock, jazz and funk, Head Music enjoyed moderate success and received praiseworthy reviews in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section and CREAM and Billboard magazines. The album's first single "Surrender Yourself" was remixed by Danny Tenaglia and reached No. 1 on Billboard's Dance Chart. Creative disagreements with Columbia would see Daou negotiate out of her contract and subsequently release Head Music's next two singles for the independent Tribal Records.

MCA years

In 1994 Daou, now billed as a solo act, recorded Zipless, a sexually charged collection of pieces inspired by the work of the poet/novelist Erica Jong. A slight stylistic evolution from Head Music, Zipless employed a somewhat more synthesized sound and introduced Daou's foray into recorded spoken word. Daou released Zipless on her own label, Lotus Records. The album quickly established a cult following and attracted the attention of Bob Krasnow, the music A&R executive whose artist signings include Anita Baker, Björk, Natalie Merchant and Metallica. Krasnow signed Daou to his fledgling MCA Records subsidiary Krasnow Entertainment and re-released Zipless in 1995.

Zipless garnered favorable international press, with features and reviews in Time, Billboard Spotlight Review, Bikini, Vibe, Wire, Mix Mag, URB, the Toronto Star and Le Monde, among other publications. The first single, "Near the Black Forest," was featured in heavy rotation on VH1 and, along with follow-up single "Sunday Afternoons," enjoyed moderate radio rotation. Daou toured nationally with New York rapper Guru and his hip hop-jazz fusion project Jazzmatazz, playing at venues such as L.A.'s House of Blues and Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco.
In 1995 MCA underwent significant management changes, at which time the company faltered on the momentum that had been building for several months around Zipless. Daou recorded a sophomore solo album, Slow to Burn, and released it in the rfall of that year. With each song a vignette inspired by the biographies of such celebrated female artisans as Billie Holiday, Gertrude Stein and Frida Kahlo, Slow To Burn enjoyed moderate to heavy smooth jazz format radio play with its first single "Two to Tango." It was featured in reviews in VIBE, URB, Billboard, Curve, and Cover magazines. Two to Tango was remixed by Danny Tenaglia and reached the top of Billboard's Dance Chart, remaining at No. 1 for three weeks. It was featured in the Matthew Perry film Fools Rush In. Two other songs from the album,"If I Could (What I Would Do For You)" and "How Do You Feel?," were featured in the films An American Werewolf in Paris and Idle Hands, respectively.

In the winter of 1996 Seagram took over MCA and Doug Morris, a reputed adversary of Bob Krasnow, became president of the record label. Krasnow soon retired and folded his namesake label. Daou chose to leave as well, and negotiated out of her contract with MCA. Over the next couple years Daou again chose to release her records independently. With some support from Benny Medina/Handprint Entertainment, she released 1997's dancy, cosmic exploration-themed Plutonium Glow, on her own DaouMusic label. The project was one of the earliest albums by a former major-label artist to be marketed and sold on the internet. The online release was followed by a 1998 UK re-release by independent international distributor Oxygen Music Works. This latter version featured an alternate song sequencing and a new track, "Alive," in place of "Visions of You." Artwork from the Plutonium Glow era was showcased in an exhibit called "Plutonium Show" at Untitled (SPACE) Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. A piece from the show entitled "Music Box" subsequently went on for display at a National Arts Club student exhibition, securing the Jeffrey Seyfert Memorial Prize.

In 1999, Daou released Dear John Coltrane on the Oxygen imprint. Somewhat more heady and nostalgic in the vein of Slow to Burn than danceable like Plutonium Glow, the homage to the legendary jazz saxophonist met with warm reception by fans, but sparse marketing, press, club and radio support. Daou's next album Make You Love, inspired by the travails of a girlfriend living in Paris, was co-released in 2000 on Daou's own label imprint and EMI in France. Generally positive reviews for Make You Love were featured in Le Monde, Elle, Magic, and Billboard Spotlight Review, and many critics received the album as Daou's most pop-oriented. The album's song "Julliette" was used in a scene for U.S. television series Dawson's Creek; the single "A Little Bit of Pain" was used in Lifetime TV movie Sex, Lies and Obsession; and in the fall of 2000 Daou promoted the project as guest on a seven-week concert tour of France by pop vocalist Etienne Daho. The song "Make Believe" from Plutonium Glow was re-recorded as a duet with Daho for his Corps et armes album.

Hiatus and return

On the heels of Make You Love, Daou would take a seven-year hiatus from releasing new material. Her catalog was tapped for various music compilations and for the soundtrack to 2005 French film Lila Says, but Daou would devote this time largely to visual arts, writing and academic pursuits.

Joe Sent Me

In 2007, Daou announced on her official website that various pieces created since Make You Love were being compiled for an upcoming multimedia release, introduced under the working title Then, at Midnight. The project, ostensibly a new music album with related graphical content, ultimately would undergo a name change to Joe Sent Me, a passphrase used to navigate freely among the clandestine U.S. Prohibition-era speakeasy subculture. Several pivotal moments during Daou's hiatus would shape her new output—the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York, where she then resided; and inspiring travel experiences among them. On May 19, 2008, audio clips, lyrics and interactive graphic content heralding Joe Sent Me premiered on the website for the Barcelona Poetry Symposium. The material thereafter became available on Daou's own site, and the album itself was released in November 2008 via Daou's online marketplace. In May 2009, a program of original dances based on the music of Joe Sent Me debuted at Mercer County Community College's Kelsey Theatre, performed by the school's Mercer Dance Ensemble.
Love Among the Shadowed Things

On January 31, 2010, a collection of four tone poems from Daou, collectively titled Love Among the Shadowed Things, debuted on the seasonal Weird Tales for Winter segment of Jonny Mugwump & The Exotic Pylon, an experimental radio series broadcasting on London's community radio/Radio Art-format Resonance 104.4 FM.

Composed around the themes "Dream," "Snow," "Shadow" and "Night," the poems that comprise Love Among the Shadowed Things are stream-of-consciousness collages of spoken word, sparse free jazz accompaniment and thickly layered sound effects. Daou describes this aural meditation on a particular December night as a juxtapositioning of things "secular and temporal ... familiar ... mystifying ... universal and eternal."[5]
Light Sweet Crude (Act 1: Hybrid)

In summer 2012, Daou's official website announced the online streaming debut of song "Revolution." The track would be included as a feature remix on Noozik – Volume 1, a collaborative music release between New York fashion house Nooka and digital indie music label Synth Records. Daou's website also announced that the original version of "Revolution" would appear on an upcoming 2013 album: Light Sweet Crude.

Employing an array of producers, Light Sweet Crude (Act I: Hybrid) on its release would bear arguably a broader and more pronounced influence of discrete musical styles—e.g. house music, reggae, hip hop, and symphonic—than prior projects. Lyrically, too, Light Sweet Crude would see Daou expand into new territory: Where earlier work all but exclusively explored the tumult of personal angst and interpersonal liaisons, those matters in Light Sweet Crude become corollary to such geopolitical phenomena as revolution and war.

    "I would say it has something to do with my own growing awareness and perception that politics is no longer something that exists outside of ourselves," Daou has said. "There is no longer much, if any, separation between what happens outside in the world and what happens inside ourselves."


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The ten tracks on Zipless  were taken from Erica Jong's compilation of poems called 'Becoming Light.' But while Erica's lyrics are haunting and thought-provoking, the star of the album is Vanessa Daou's sultry voice. It melts into the album's techno-R&B (composed and played by husband Peter Daou  who happens to be Jong's nephew). Musically, the arrangements are often sparse and ambient, giving Vanessa Daou plenty of space to deliver the words in either spoken form or with slinky, seductive vocals. It's an approach that is a almost flawless, allowing the listener to drift along as Vanessa breathily offers up the provocative memories on "Sunday Afternoons" or weaves her way through the hushed, evocative "My Love Is Too Much." Jong herself gives the reading of "Smoke," with some vocals added by Vanessa. Other noteworthy tracks include the inviting opener "The Long Tunnel of Wanting You," which simmers with an airy, percussive melody, and the hypnotic, wispy "Near the Black Forest." Zipless is a breathtaking trip that can barely contain its own sensuality. 

<a href="https://multiup.org/50471c3a3b725726a5d87c7217aa9143">   Vanessa Daou -  Zipless (Deluxe) </a> (flac   421mb)

01 The Long Tunnel of Wanting You 3:37
02 Dear Anne Sexton 3:45
03 Alcestis on the Poetry Circuit 4:39
04 Sunday Afternoons 3:46
05 Autumn Perspective 6:22
06 Near the Black Foest 4:45
07 My Love Is Too Much 5:47
08 Becoming a Nun 5:19
09 Smoke 2:44
10 Autumn Reprise 2:17

11 Near the Black Forest (Black Olive 12 Mix) [Olive Remix] 7:27
12 Near the Black Forest (Jazz Moses Vocal) [Jazzy Nice, Mitch Moses Remix] 7:09
13 Sunday Afternoons (The Lotus Way) [Peter Daou, Tony Edwards Remix] 5:19
14 Sunday Afternoons (The Chill Way) [Chillfreez] 5:44

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Vanessa Daou moves somewhat away from the intense eroticism of Zipless on her second album, but it is a no less seductive or steamily crepuscular effort. Each of Slow to Burn's 11 songs pays homage to an influential female artisan, from musicians (Billie Holiday) to artists and poets (Gertrude Stein, Frida Kahlo) to actresses and dancers (Greta Garbo, Josephine Baker), whose life exemplifies complete liberation, artistic or otherwise. Peter Daou's music again grooves with a jazz edge -- keyboards and cymbals abound, with warm, creamy basslines and dance rhythms that are unusually suggestive rather than rampant -- but also moves from brooding to meditative, often within the same song. Rather than dancefloor fodder, the music seems as if it would be more at home in an after-hours club where movement is a narcotized haze. Peter Daou's playing and arrangements are impeccable and precise but can also have a haunting quality. In addition to the pervasive jazz influence, elements of gospel, R&B, dance, electronica, and even slight hints of Latin music enter the songs. "Evening" is like a long, slow drag on a cigarette, sexy and gorgeous with the underlying sense of hazard that is likely to be regretted the next morning, and many of the other songs share that sensuality. Vanessa Daou's lyrics alternate between longing, beguiling, and introspective. They are not always exactly poetry, but they are usually compelling and, married with Peter Daou's voice, it is enough to bring the music to full life. Her smoky whisper is vulnerability itself, pure late-night allure that is chilling because it acts as a spectral knife-edge, both empowering and dangerous. Her vocals are down in the mix, treated with echo, and some of her vocal phrasing (though not the vocals themselves) is reminiscent of Sade. And like Sade, Vanessa Daou has an icy veneer to her voice without ever coming off as frigid or overly calculated. In fact, it has just the opposite quality. Her singing is a gauzy, windswept curtain in the dark, and it equally draws you curiously closer to it and sends an eerie tingle through you because of what might be behind it. There is a reason that Slow to Burn is perfect post-midnight music. It is a subtle jolt of electricity that illuminates the blue darkness and makes all the shadows sparkle.




<a href="https://www.imagenetz.de/BF8xm "> Vanessa Daou -  Slow to Burn </a> (flac   459mb)

01 How Do You Feel 3:51
02 Evening 3:40
03 Taste the Wine 4:00
04 If I Could (What Would I Do) 3:32
05 Waiting for the Sun to Rise 4:20
06 Fugue States 2:44
07 Don't Explain 4:08
08 Two to Tango 4:21
09 This Blue Hour 3:52
10 For Anything 2:57
11 Cross That Bridge 3:57

12 Two To Tango (Valley Of The Daou Mix) 11:25
13 Two To Tango (Lotus Mix) 4:04
14 Two To Tango (Twilo Mix) 11:16

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Zipless and Slow to Burn were preoccupied with matters of this earth, particularly corporeal matters such as desire and yearning. Plutonium Glow, on the other hand, while still intensely sweaty, shifts its focus to the stars. Vanessa Daou sounds even more dynamic in this setting. Daou has a voice like a feather that literally floats off into the crisp night air, leaving the listener with a sweet but sometimes sorrowful aftertaste. Her voice, as much of a thin wisp as it is, seems to be reverberating from some deep, dark place and, like her first two albums, betrays an almost zealous, sacred sense of passion mirrored by the striking, contrasting imagery in her lyrics to songs such as "Alive" and "Cherries in the Snow." Futuristic keyboard arrangements leave a lot of space in the music, opening it up to a certain mystery. Peter Daou seems to be drawing from a more expansive bag of sounds on Plutonium Glow than he has in the past, particularly electronic sources. Spacy blips and bleeps dart in and out of the songs, propelling the music toward the vague essence of a future dotted with references to orbits and rockets, the speed of light, and other bleak, spacy elements. He has incorporated some cutting-edge effects into the music, as well. "Zero G" has an echoey, panting sound looped as part of the background rhythm, and innovative beats that are slowly inductive form a core focus on the album. The title song offers a rhythm track with kitchen-sink effects that wants to move into drum'n'bass overdrive, though it never actually reaches that point. Overall, the music has an expansiveness and a wide-open quality. It has depth and is distancing, but never off-putting, never less than palpable. The Daous continue to create stimulating (in more ways than one) and forward-looking music, equally at home on the dancefloor, in the car, and in the comforts of a bedroom.


                                             
<a href="https://mir.cr/01A60PVV   "> Vanessa Daou - Plutonium Glow </a> (flac   346mb)

01 Alive 4:09
02 Make Believe 3:51
03 Peculiar 3:50
04 Back to the World 5:57
05 Life on a Distant Star 4:12
06 Zero G 4:18
07 Mouth to Mouth 3:59
08 Truth Remains 2:54
09 Lightening 1:54
10 Plutonium Glow 3:58
11 Flower of My Fears 2:02
12 Cherries in the Snow 3:42
13 How Far 3:49
14 Red Dawn 3:05
    

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Vanessa and Peter Daou are modestly famous club-music mavens who combine a sort of new-Beat lyrical approach with sinuous but polite dance music. The focus is on Vanessa's swoony, whispery vocals and sexpot pose, behind which swirl jazzy beats of various types. The beats themselves are always quite low-key; while generally funky and sometimes quite complex, they never threaten to distract from Vanessa's seductive crooning. The songs on this album are all addressed to the late John Coltrane and make frequent lyrical and musical reference to his compositions. Daou's lyrics are sometimes inspired, but more frequently lapse into a sort of high-school Zen mentality ("Thinking of the pain/But where is the hurt?/Thinking of the air/But where is the wind?"). Elsewhere there are throwaway references to Billie Holiday, McCoy Tyner, and Thelonious Monk, references that sound more like bids for credibility than anything else. But on "A Thousand Licks" and, especially, "Deviate," Daou manages to cast a silky spell that draws you in until you stop listening so closely to the lyrics. For the most part, that's her best bet.



<a href="http://depositfiles.com/files/iysav2je2"> Vanessa Daou - Dear John Coltrane </a> (flac   246mb)

01 Passed 5:39
02 I Cry For You 3:24
03 Deviate 4:19
04 Inner Space 5:11
05 A Thousand Licks 4:13
06 The Word 4:53
07 Snake Charmer 2:53
08 Liquid Fire 4:12
09 Unbecoming 3:24
10 Trane Tripping 3:38

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