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Vanessa Daou continues her poetic and musical explorations with a new album, JOE SENT ME. Inspired by the code words that were used to get into the Speakeasies of the Prohibition era, "Joe sent me", was one of the most common ones. "It was the perfect metaphor for my new album, saying something about the transmission of ideas through time, the secret ranges of the voice, fleeting nights of love and desire, the archiving of dreams, memory, and the imagination." "Joe sent me" was the perfect metaphor... saying something about ...the secret ranges of the voice..."
Using her voice as confession and invitation, Vanessa approaches each song as though it were a secret message. The album grew out of a raw journal of notes and sketches she began after 9/11. "For me, music is a response to the world, and the voice imbues the words with life and gives them breath. I'm especially interested in the idea of recording as an act of preservation of experience. To be a recording artist is - quite literally - to make a record of sounds, voices, words, and breaths. Every record I create, I plunge into the depths of life in all aspects of experience: sound, images, dreams. Music is a time capsule, capturing, distilling and preserving the essence of what it means to be alive. The role of poetry, of words and language, is to remind us." "...music is a responseto the world, and the voice imbues the words with life and gives them breath."
Vanessa Daou digs deeper into her electro-acoustic roots on JOE SENT ME, reminiscent of Zipless & Head Music, she describes this new album as "moody, bluesy, soulful, minimal, bass heavy, and rich musically." On JOE SENT ME, Jazz, Blues, Electronica and spoken word merge seamlessly, sounds and echoes from the past coexist, clash and collide: Vanessa's intention was to create "a unique sonic landscape." Jazz has always played a prominent role in Vanessa's music, from Head Music to Dear John Coltrane, an album inspired by the life and music of John Coltrane. "Jazz music is rooted in improvisation, and because of that, it expresses both thinking and feeling. It's as much about the searching and the questioning as it is about the spirit of the music itself. Jazz is its own language - what interests me is how it can communicate on several levels at once: ideas about nationality, history, sexuality, synchronization, rebellion all come into play." |
Whispered, spoken, sung, Vanessa uses the mode of a poem as both question and solution on, delving into the complexities of desire. JOE SENT ME-poetry online features Daou's collaborations with New York Sound Artist Raul Vincent Enriquez, Madrid-based Poet & Performer Bruno Galindo. Viewers will also find translations and audio readings of several poems from JOE SENT ME into Catalan by Poet Daniel Sisla. "For me the internet has aspects of the romantic where imagination co- mingles with information."
In May '09, fans can visit Mercer Community College where JOE SENT ME will provide the sonic inspiration and backdrop for The Mercer Dance Ensemble's Spring Dance concert entitled 'Joe Sent M.D.E.' In the month leading up to the event, Vanessa will be a featured guest at WWFM, a major radio station located on campus, along with other guest lecturers, Professors and Scholars. Vanessa documents her exploration of intimate realms on JOE SENT ME - tracing the trajectory of love affairs - as she conducts a technological excavation of private domains, "holding emotions up to the flickering light." She explains, "In this post-9/11 world, it is to technology that we look for meaning and a sense of universal sharing. For me, the internet has aspects of the romantic, where the imagination commingles with information, poetry with pornography, where revelation jostles with revolution." The creation of JOE SENT ME documents the artist's navigation, a journey through this hybrid world of internal and external travels, sifting through layers of the past and present that merge, clash, and collide, where "the artist's desire is to decipher." |
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