Apr 17, 2021

RhoDeo 2115 Grooves

 Hello,  a remnder of the re upping of the Zipless album is in order here as i corrected the mistake i made last week

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

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

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."
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."

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Vanessa Daou’s solo debut, Zipless, was structured entirely around poet Erica Jong’s Becoming Light, leaving Daou to prove herself as a songwriter for the remainder of her career. Six years and four albums later, Daou’s Make You Love plods along with the singer’s signature breathy monotony as she tries to recapture her past glories (with two tracks based on Jong poems) but never once attempting anything fresh. While Jong’s lyrics are once again strikingly profound, most of the tracks written by Daou don’t leave a whole lot to chew on: “Let me take you low/Let me take you high/’Cause girls like me are gonna say goodbye.” The title track, however, rises to the occasion, mixing shuffling drum n’ bass with subtle organ tones and keyboards, and, perhaps, embodies Daou’s conscious connection with her troubadour friend: “I’m writing with my poet’s hand/To reach you with my pen.” Unfortunately, the album’s most noteworthy lyrics are barely audible during the intro of “You,” the opening track: “Then without a sound/Carrying the ghosts in front of them/A bright mountain in old photographs.” This time, rather than ruminate on the cock and the clock, Daou indulges the ambiguities of her open sexuality on tracks like the Jong-penned “Honey In a Jar.” It is, indeed, a very female album. But even the tracks that call on Jong’s poetry fall flat by comparison. Attempting to recreate the brilliance of their past collaborative effort, Daou comes across as foolish and perhaps a bit overzealous. Defining her career in the years since Zipless has posed a huge challenge for Daou, and one that has proven increasingly difficult to overcome.




<a href="https://mir.cr/IPFZYOBA">   Vanessa Daou - Make You Love  </a> 296mb (flac   00)

01. You 3:49
02. A Little Bit Of Pain 2:53
03. Mess Around 3:50
04. Make You Love 4:24
05. Show Me 3:54
06. Lovechild 4:13
07. Aphrodite 3:36
08. I Would For You 4:24
09. A Little Bit Of Pain (II) 4:06
10. Juliette 3:44
11. Honey In A Jar 2:55
12. Bittersweet 3:56
14 Sunday Afternoons (The Chill Way) [Chillfreez] 5:44

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

On her sixth studio release, the self-produced ‘Joe Sent Me’, Vanessa Daou explorer the nuances of language and poetry, building the sonic structures around vocal collages of poems, phrasings and stream-of-consciousness thoughts that all refer to the compositions of love, both destroyed and renewed. Easily her most musically adventurous effort to date, the album has a rich organic sound that employs live instrumentation including guitar, piano, brush wires, upright bass and brass. Opening with a menacing scrape of guitars, “Manifesto”, the album’s first track, gives way to a robust, near-hip-hop beat under the support of a rumbling bassline. The temperature of both exhilaration and desire rises right around the time Daou sings, “You’re a sexy gun,” during the very moment a high-hat kicks in. The vocals are buried deep in the mix and give the impression that they were recorded under a suffocating heap of blankets, amplifying the sense of claustrophobia inherent in the song. Meanwhile, the electronicized cabaret-stomp of “Black and White” unfurls in a silver spray of ghostly piano licks and burlesque horns. In addition to being the album’s most accessible track, it also features some of the most inspired lyrics Daou has ever penned.

In many ways, ‘Joe Sent Me’ is like a cumulous cloud personified. The album starts out in full-bodied pillows of rhythm and sound before slowly fading out into a vapour of sonic air. The impression one gets when listening from start to finish is rather lovely. Daou’s otherworldly headspace is so compellingly dreamlike, it’s inescapable. Yet we never lose sight of the emotions on display. “Consequences”, an exercise in decadence and groove, draws the listener in with a tale of a possible rendezvous, which may or may never happen. The vocals, wafting like kettle-steam, coil like lace over the sensuous-slink of some heavy R&B. The spaced-out throb of “Hurricanes” pulses with slippery rhythms and the percussion of lively handclaps, turning in hypnotic circles. Here, the emotion, caught in the fragmentation of the lyrics, centers on the idea of repressed memory, rapidly being pulled to the surface. Amidst the scattershot stanzas, all the nuances of pain and love are perfectly captured. By the time the album reaches its halfway mark, Daou coolly slides into a far more muted territory of sound, with the atmospherics pooling in the depths of the album’s sonic well. At the heart of the disc lies two of the album’s most curious numbers: the psychedelic strawberry-swirl of the short and supremely sweet “True” and the unnervingly chilly and mysterious “The Hook”, both of which introduce the listener to Daou’s new and welcome flirtations with the guitar. The album at this point also delves into the deeper reaches of old-world jazz, evoking images of pin-striped suits, despondent nightclub singers and 2 a.m. scallywag drunks, clinging to the back walls of derelict buildings.

“Save Yourself”, a provocatively elegiac number, beautifully encapsulates the romance of despair, bringing to mind images of vintage film posters plastered to peeling walls, strewn comic books and worn-out vinyl record albums, skipping and cracking their rhythms into the night. Here, Daou paints the portrait of a lonely, young man, peering out the bare windows of some Lower East village flat, garishly lit by the flickering neon signs outside. In the distance we can hear the sampled clatter of some tinny percussion resounding like faraway traffic. The jazz becomes full-on on “Once in a While”; a hazy sax winding its way through a lazy, elegant groove, a druggy Rhodes piano and the sly modulations of a few keyboard licks. All the while, the track is kept warmed over by the hushed coos of Daou’s ether-like voice. And when the album finally winds down to a close, signing off with “Heart of Wax” and a stirring reprise of “The Hook”, we are left with the sense of being on the end of a deliciously cruel parting shot. It’s hard to tell whether the silk and satin are simply veils for Daou’s many inner demons or if she is just winking through her pain. But her kind of pain hurts real good and the final slap in the face feels more like a warm, fresh kiss.  



<a href="https://multiup.org/3f6b94da0a770bdee64a65d0ae7e5897 "> Vanessa Daou - Joe Sent Me</a> (flac   278mb)

01. Manifesto 3:13
02. Black & White 4:15
03. Consequences 4:06
04. Joe Sent Me 3:48
05. Hurricanes 3:21
06. Life Force 3:52
07. True 1:20
08. The Hook 3:56
09. Love Lives In The Dark 3:45
10. Save Yourself 2:18
11. The Poem 5:14
12. Once In A While 5:23
13. Heart Of Wax 4:50
14. The Hook (Reprise) 3:06

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx  

For years Vanessa Daou has been creating a brand of music that not only explores all facets of the sensual but dares listeners to indulge in the more private reaches of their sexual fantasies." - Popmatters

"With a succession of always morphing productions exploring a weird ambient hinterland between ambient pop, jazz, soul and electronica, Vanessa has re-emerged more sonically sophisticated and spacious yet also more dreamy." - The Quietus

Vanessa Daou closes the chapter on her highly-acclaimed 2008 smoky-jazz exploration 'Joe Sent Me', with the release of the equally compelling remix companion 'Speak/Easy: The Moonshine Mixes'. The meticulously crafted anthology assembles a broad selection of new and previously released mixes of songs culled from the gauzy electronic jazz-pop chanteuse's bewitching 6th studio album - including singles "Heart of Wax", "Consequences", "Black & White" and "Once And A While".Featuring an eclectic cast of international dance/electronic music innovators (and collaborators) such as Blank & Jones, Charles Webster, Ralph Myerz, Ganga, Terry Lee Brown Jr., Roberto Rodriguez, Jori Hulkkonen, Mark Reeder, DJ Hen Boogie and more, the dynamic 16-track set brilliantly captures (and reflects) the vast scope and breadth of Vanessa's genre-expansive musical explorations, which have the become the hallmark of her career.

Gliding effortlessly from sophisticated jazz-pop fusion, sultry electronica, melancholy soul and pastoral ambient pop to languid blues, brooding trip hop, abstract hip hop and sweltering deep house grooves, 'Speak/Easy' is the natural extension or progression of the myriad themes and moods of 'Joe Sent Me' that avoids the usual pitfalls of remix collections. Rather than simply being a tepid second helping of uneven remixes that would wither in the shadow of its predecessor, the album is an equally evocative cohesive statement that not only breathes new life into the compelling originals, but also magnifies their potential reach.The end result is a soul-satisfying soundtrack ideal for clubs, lounges, long late-night drives or intimate gatherings at home.that will undoubtedly appeal to Daou's legion of devout fans, as well as, newcomers, alike.  


                                             
<a href="https://www.imagenetz.de/cn7u9   "> Vanessa Daou - Speak-Easy - The Moonshine Mixes - 'Joe Sent Me' Revisited </a> (102 min   646mb)

01. Hurricanes (DJ Hen Boogie Subsonic Mix)
02. Love Lives In The Dark (Ralph Myerz And Olivier Rohrbach 5AM Eternal Mix)
03. Life Force (DJ Hen Boogie Dirty Boots Mix)
04. Once In A While (Nor Elle Mix)
05. Heart Of Wax (Ganga Mix)
06. Consequences (Blank & Jones Late Night Mix)
07. Black & White (Mark Reeder's Monochrome Mix)
08. Once In A While (Charles Webster’s Midnight Mix)
09. Black & White (Jori Hulkkonen Dub)
10. Consequences (Terry Lee Brown Jr. Mix)
11. Once In A While (Roberto Rodriguez Every Now And Then Dub)
12. Heart Of Wax (Emjae’s Subterranean Disco Dub)
13. Love Lives In The Dark (Scrap Processors 'Dub Lives In The Dark' Mix)
14. Manifesto (Blank & Jones And Mark Reeder’s Save Yourself Mix)
15. Black & White (Sleepthief Mix)
16. Heart Of Wax (Heart Of Crystal Mix)
    

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

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="https://multiup.org/ea428a7dd7f5b70455652da0eae5ff1b"> Vanessa Daou -  Light Sweet Crude (Act One: Hybrid) </a> (flac   414mb)

01 Love Affair 4:18
02 Trouble Comes 5:09
03 Camouflage 3:22
04 Chances 3:14
05 One Thing I'm Missing 4:53
06 Bar D'O 5:10
07 Just For You 4:19
08 Break Me 4:31
09 The Brunette 5:23
10 Love Is War 4:11
11 Danger Ahead 4:49
12 Dream 3:52
13 The Broken Hearted 5:10
14 Goodbye 2:51
15 Revolution 4:53

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

2 comments:

  1. I've enjoyed your blog for quite some time, musings & music alike :)
    Nice to see a post about Vanessa Daou, especially as she remains under the radar after all these years. Zipless is to this day one of my favorite albums in general. -I'm a bit surprised that you didn't mention her relationship/collaboration with then husband Peter Daou
    until the end; he was responsible for practically all the music production until 2000. While his own discography is small, he's considered an important figure in the early NY house music scene.
    -Unfortunately the 2 "multiup" links you provided I cannot download from, I paused adblocker but still nothing happens thus I can't get to the zippyshare or other hosts. I own all of her albums, but "Joe Sent Me" and "Light Sweet Crude" I have in storage, unfortunately not sure where! Any chance you could reply & add those 2 zippy links here?

    -Thanks either way & kind regards

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well I managed to access the "Joe Sent Me" via fichier. What was freaky though is first I tried zippyshare, and it took me to an amazon product page...and in Spanish (??) Lol I dunnoooo

    ReplyDelete