• If you people don’t stop googling (and finding my blog) for “Vanessa Daou Joe Sent Me torrent” I will seriously spank your ass. Buy the bloody record. It’s amazing. And while I don’t mind it if Madonna or Britney lose 50% of their multimillion sales, Vanessa Daou doesn’t exactly sell 5 million copies of her albums, and I want her to make a new one.
• Very interesting article by a lady divorcing after 20 years: have men really become so awful? (I am clinging to hope it’s only so bad in America ? they probably have really bad water) Has marriage really outlived its sell-by date? And, most importantly, am I The Builder or The Negotiator?
• The new Mariah Carey single is the first song of hers I really really like since “Dreamlover” 15 years ago, but the cover… ugh… let’s just say when I look at it I don’t think it looks like she has faith in her music.
• Yes I know about the Belgian twat that pretends 56 stars on her face have found their way there accidentally. I don’t believe for a split second that she asked for three. I don’t speak French but believe that “three” and “fifty-six” sound somewhat different in French (just like in any language in the world). And trust me, you wouldn’t fall asleep during a tattoo session, and if you did, the tattoo artist would call doctors immediately. The fact that there is a witness who confirms the artist’s version doesn’t surprise me either.

It is not a good idea to start a new blog when you have absolutely no time to write it, and that’s just what I did because I am a contrary bastard and I never do what I should. To make things a bit more difficult, I have no internet access until Wednesday, and I feel as if a body part has been taken away. My name is Ray and I am addicted to the internet.

There are books waiting to be read, CDs waiting to be played, blog entries waiting to be r– oh hang on, no, I went to my old place (which still has internet), loaded all the unread blog entries into a single Google Reader page, then came back home and read them. Oh yes. All 67 of them. So I am more or less au courant with everyone, folks, just hopelessly delayed with commenting because it’s much less fun to comment without being able to post immediately.

The best moment of my life might have happened this weekend; was it when I gave the Unicorn a unicorn and saw the sparks of laughter in his eyes? or was it when I found out my blog tagline has inspired Vanessa Daou’s blog post? or was it when I spent my first night ever at my own apartment and dreamt I was dancing to Michael Jackson and Britney Spears songs (don’t judge) much better than I was ever able to in reality, feeling so happy and so excited and so young? or is it now, that I am on my own here for the first time, having taken Scipio to the train station, and while he is spending his 16 hours on the train, I am spending my 16 hours with slight fever, aching throat and my legs feel as if I have done the harshest workout of my life yesterday? I have no idea, but this weekend was one I will never forget, and the year is only four days old.

I have to admit that my apartment isn’t entirely my own creation, as I had friends and relatives help me with painting, laying tiles, repairing walls, lending me money and things, helping me with the transportation… By Moz, I have the bestest friends in the entire universe, and my brother is a fucking star (which is doubly amazing considering we used to hate each other guts for most of our lives). Those people just amaze me by their kindness and sweetness and willingness to help without expecting much in return. I am going to spend 2009 learning from them.

Life is such a beautiful, beautiful thing. There is so much to experience and to learn; you can either live with a negative attitude, like a certain person I know who finds a new possibility to wallow in self-pity in every little thing that happens, or just enjoy things. Yes, I realise that I have gone from having nice savings into being neck-deep in debt. I’ll pay it off. I can live without CDs, clothes and books for another few months, especially as I have too many clothes to fit them in my wardrobe, too many CDs to fit them into the CD shelves and too many books to actually find time to read them (at least 10 are awaiting their turn). The one thing I couldn’t possibly live without is the people around me, and I have been blessed with a great bunch.

It is a time of summaries still… it will be over tomorrow assuming my cold (or whatever it is) is light enough to allow me to go to work. Some sad memories come back to me; happy ones, especially from 2008, outnumber them so much it’s just amazing. And I am learning — still — not to hold on to the sad ones; letting them go isn’t easy, but it is such a relieving process…

There are strange noises in my apartment; Charlotte Gainsbourg croons quietly from the hi-fi, while the floor, heating and (I assume) other bits croak, click or plonk every now and then. I haven’t learned to listen to the new sounds yet; I don’t yet know which ones are dangerous and which can be ignored. Is that person making noise outside a neighbour parking his bike, or a thief stealing… whatever they are stealing? Is the strange clicky sound coming from my bathroom a good thing? (It is not water dripping, I checked.) There is an empty house and there is me, and there are the hours I am going to spend learning this year; 2009 will be the year of learning — to accept, to love, to ignore, to separate, to know myself better, to know other people better. To say yes. To say no. Always the thoughts; always the space; always the silence; always the love; always — the hours.

Joe Sent Me

“Joe Sent Me” is the first Vanessa Daou album since 2001’s “Make You Love”; it is also her first record not to be produced by Peter Daou. It sounds both familiar and very, very different to her previous work. The voice is different; less sweet, less processed, more raw and with a slightly rough edge. The sound is very different too, and that’s a good thing.

The Peter Daou production, so revolutionary in its sensual sound on 1994’s “Zipless” hasn’t evolved much. The slightly more daring excursions into jazz and drum’n'bass on “Dear John Coltrane,” were gone from “Make You Love”. While “Make You Love” undoubtedly perfected the electronic sound of the Daous, it was barely daring sonically; tracks like “Show Me” or “Juliette” could have been anyone’s, “Aphrodite” or “A Little Bit of Pain” would have sounded perfectly in place on seven years old “Zipless”.

“Joe Sent Me” is dramatically different. There is jazz, and there is electronica, and there is Vanessa’s voice, but that’s about all that connects those records. “Hurricanes” reminds me of Air’s “Virgin Suicides”. “True” is Vanessa’s voice and acoustic guitar — SHOCKING!!1! “Black And White” sounds like some strange collaboration between Goldfrapp and a jazz band. “Life Force”, incredibly intrinsic sonically (this is very much a headphones record) and “Manifesto” wouldn’t fit on any previous Daou record — and I suspect that’s why it opens the album, a true manifesto of a new sound. “Love Lives In The Dark” sounds like Massive Attack (and oh my, the thought of Vanessa working with Massive Attack makes me ecstatic). This is very much a new record by an artist who hasn’t said her final word.

The sexiness and sensuality, always present in Vanessa’s records, take a new dimension here; she isn’t the androgynous girl who sung “Sunday Afternoons” anymore — she is, very much, a very grown up woman. The girl is still present in the songs like “Heart Of Wax”; but it is a very different person who wrote “Joe Sent Me”. “And don’t be thinking/you’re the only one/who knows” she warns, and shivers go down my spine. “Here’s the pen you gave me/to write my poetry/I said I’d give it back to you the day you stop inspiring me/Here’s the glass, it’s empty” begins “Black And White” and, again, the thrill is almost physical. Those lyrics were worth waiting seven years for.

The album has weaker points, but not many. “Consequences”, dancey and melodical in its Blank + Jones incarnation, sounds strangely flat here, as if the band was playing a different song to the one Vanessa is singing. Replace it with the Blank + Jones version and you’re done. “Once In A While” isn’t exactly a bad track, it’s just the least remarkable in this collection, drifting nowhere for its 5 minutes and 24 seconds. That’s it. The rest is all essential listening. Especially “Black And White”, sublime “Heart Of Wax” and “Joe Sent Me” should make it into everyone’s sonic libraries, like, NOW.

Which brings me to a really strange point — it looks like the album is ONLY available through www.daourecords.com (where I purchased it). It is a beautiful release, the physical CD looks much better than the scans available online, but in this day and age it is commercial suicide to ignore any digital vendors. Personally I like the fact Vanessa Daou is such a well hidden secret, but the fan in me wishes to see her topping the charts everywhere, and I don’t think selling the CD only through her website is going to help her achieve that. This album deserves much more recognition; and Vanessa deserves to make enough money to finance another release. So please buy it, everyone.

Vanessa Daou myspace
Vanessa Daou website
Daou Records

Joe Sent Me

Stop press: I have received the new Vanessa Daou album by post.

There is something extremely exciting about getting an actual CD by post. One that you can’t buy at the nearest record shop and you wouldn’t ever want to download illegally from a torrent site. One that you wanted for months and now you are listening to for the first time with hands shaking from excitement — and you haven’t felt like that since Pet Shop Boys’ “Bilingual” in the Nineties.

A very very extensive review will follow soon.