Sow - Je M'aime
Martin Atkins has done a really lovely job rescuing master tapes from their premature placement in dusty archives. Anna Wildsmith's Sow project is one that well deserves its resurrection. Je M'aime, though saddled with a '99 copyright date is actually older than her other new album, dating back a few years to a time when Raymond Watts hadn't quite been seduced by the industrial guitar attack (not that I'm saying that as if it is a bad thing). Anna coaxes a much wider range of musical accompaniment out of Raymond (and Mr. Foetus himself on one track) that serves as a properly sexually-charged post art-rock/neo-industrial/dark atmospheric melange that mixes spoken lyrics in English, French, and Italian.
Sounds like an unholy mess, doesn't it? Look at it from my perspective: I'm trying to convince you to add this to your collection and we're not at a point in our relationship where the phrase "just buy the damn thing already" is going to have the proper cash-separation effect on you. So, I have to use my wily skills and some bullet points to get you to the store.
- "The World is My Oyster" is the most disturbing song to which you will ever snap your fingers in accompaniment. It sounds just like it appears, a bright British afternoon in the park with Polly the plastic doll. "Tea with Polly under a tree/Getting sticky with Polly and cream buns." She turns on you by the end, sinks her fangs so far into your arm that you'll never be free of the mark.
- The title of "Face of Suede" is meant to distract you. Well, actually most of this distracts you until you're already mesmerized and wondering just how you got to this decadent place. (I don't remember asking for this ball gag...) The actual song is this orgiastic texturing of strings, electronics, drums, and Anna's voice into this overwhelming aural experience of a sexual encounter that probably only happens once in everyone's lifetime. If you're lucky.
- "Blood Sucking Bitch" is all in Italian. And some day I'll bother to run it all through some online translator and actually figure out what she's crooning about. But in the meantime, I'll just be happy with the pounding chorus that is actually in English and really cathartic if you have got some issues with past girlfriends to work out.
- Anna has said in more than one interview that she doesn't concern herself so much with the language she chooses to sing in, focusing more on her delivery to translate the intent and the meaning of the songs. "Je M'aime" is a rain-soaked juke joint song, complete with upright bass and wah-wah trumpet growling in the background. It's a seductive ode to one's self that is both adorative and abusive. The cover art for the '94 release of this disc is a perfect reflection of this song (a photo that survives in the liner notes).
- "Do you really want to go out there and meet the species?" A too accurate representation of the male sex floods "Manripe." Coupled with Stravinsky-styled strings and percussion, Anna plays both sides of the argument, flaying each sex for failing to transcend their baser natures. Or maybe it is just recognizing the primal states that drive us all. "Always/Forever."
Be adventurous this month. Get a disc that will suck you under with its music and tap you hard with its lyrical content. Let Anna peel back your head and get inside, let her find those dark spots you didn't know were there, let Raymond Watts attach a little ditty to that specter she drags out of you. Let some of that Freudian repressed id out and find out just how much a good song can make you squirm in your skin.
Sow
Invisible Records [1999]
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