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September 9, 2009 - Wednesday

'Joe Sent Me': Review on PopMatters

"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."

Read full review by Imran Khan on PopMatters

8:57 PM

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September 8, 2009 - Tuesday

Anji Bee's Chillcast #178: Classic Chillout

Hear 'Save Yourself' from JOE SENT ME on vocalist & podcaster Anji Bee's Chillcast #178: Classic ChilloutThe lovely Anji Bee writes:

"I was torn between titling this one "Classic Chillout," "Classic Chillcast," or "Lovely Ladies." Today's show is exactly that, a classic Chillcast mix of lovely chillout tunes with Internationally diverse female vocals. My favorite! I've had quite a few high quality trance tracks sent in recently, but this week I was really in more of a mellow mood so what we’ve got here is a nice collection of downtempo, lounge, worldbeat, r&b, and one little drum & bass tune for good measure. Enjoy, baby!"

Link to Anji Bee

9:22 PM

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September 8, 2009 - Tuesday

Artist of the Week | Anji Bee

"After an 8 year hiatus, the lovely Vanessa Daou has returned with a delicious new album. Part smooth jazz, part experimental folk - Miss Daou paints an aural portrait of a smoky basement lounge where a sexy poetess performs side by side with a sensual chanteuse. Daou flows effortless between the two worlds of spoken word and song, and we follow along, held in sway by her siren’s call. Listening to 'Joe Sent Me' is like coming back to your favorite old haunt to find that time has stood still and preserved the magic of that first time you discovered it there, hidden just below the surface of the busy city streets."

7:51 PM

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July 22, 2009 - Wednesday

"The Hook" Part II "Joe Sent M.D.E." at Mercer County Community College
Category: Music

Part II: "Joe Sent M.D.E." at Mercer County Community College - "The Hook"
from Elixir Productions Theatre Co. on Vimeo.

THE HOOK

We learned all the pleasures of the tongue
before we knew each other's names,
long after all the pain had come.

Imagine the shock of a fish when the hook finds its mouth
Then the sigh it heaves when it shakes it out
Our first kiss was like this
And there's the hook

I used to swim wild and free
but like a lazy cod I took the bait
Now I'm like a shark in the dark
I never close my eyes anymore

I twisted like an unruly marlin so I'd love you this madly.
I knew just how the story would end and I'd miss you this badly
And in the end I'd do it again
And there's the hook

© 2007 Vanessa Daou

Order Joe Sent Me

Joe Sent Me-poetry

5:11 PM

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July 21, 2009 - Tuesday

Interview with GirlieGirl Army Founder Chloé Jo Berman

Sultry Siren: An Interview with Vanessa Daou

"We were introduced to gorgeous Vanessa Daou via her Zipless, her seminal 1994 record. Zipless, a sexually-charged, feminist collection of pieces inspired by the work of her husband Peter’s aunt, the poet/novelist Erica Jong, has been touted as the ultimate sex record. world-over. In fact, we think it (much like kombucha, good red wine, or a little smoke-age) is a serious aphrodisiac - download it on itunes asap. Or at the very least watch the video for the single "Near The Black Forest."

Vanessa's early underground success brought her to the attention of Columbia Records/Sony which signed her to a seven album record deal in 1992. Together with her then musical partner, producer and husband, Peter Daou, on piano, the pair recorded as THE DAOU and released their debut album, HEAD MUSIC in 1992. In 1994, the duo decided to launch Vanessa as a solo artist with Peter as co-writer, producer and arranger.

Vanessa's newest record Joe Sent Me is another foray into the breathy, transcendental plane of Daou's endlessly sexy voice, brilliant mind, and sophisticated beats. Plus, the gal is no dummy; as a Visual Arts and Art History major at Columbia University, Vanessa has always approached her art as a synthesis of sight and sound, written word and song. The Windy City Times writes: "Electronica, smooth jazz, drum-and-bass, poet, chanteuse, painter. Vanessa Daou is one artist who thrives on not being pigeonholed."GirlieGirl Army Founder Chloé Jo Berman recently had a quick chat with the glamorous chanteuse about her music, green living, and what she simply cannot go without."

Full interview @ the eco-glamorous & always informative GirlieGirl Army

7:20 PM

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July 8, 2009 - Wednesday

Joe Sent MDE & The Hidden Language of the Body
Category: Music

Excerpts from "Joe Sent M.D.E.": "Black & White" from Elixir Productions Theatre Co. on Vimeo.

Dance is language expressed by the body. On 'Joe Sent Me', I set out to explore the hidden potential in poetry, the nuances of breath, recollection, regret, hesitation, the illicit, the many shades of meaning of Jazz and its secret coded language locked in its Prohibition-era inchoateness.

In 'Joe Sent MDE', choreographers Janell Byrne and Jody Person explore a myriad of physical as well as verbal murmurings, facial gestures and hieroglyphic movements that combine the contemporary with the historical to convey meaning. One aspect of Joe Sent MDE that resonates so much with my own aesthetic is how their combined choreographed language froths and fulminates but never fully boils over. Like seduction, it's the gestures that are hinted at, the implied movements that hover, the lingering moments that matter most.

About 'Joe Sent Me', I've written: "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."

The role of Dance is to embody and set into motion those truths that are locked inside of us. Like our imaginations, our bodies can move in many, often opposing, directions: they stretch, stir, stagger, surge; this can be expressed beautifully, forcefully, ironically, irrationally, improbably, impulsively.

In dance, as in life, once a movement is made, it makes its indelible impression in time, space, and in our minds. 'Joe Sent MDE' reminds us that our physical selves are wrapped up in our mental selves, and that each generation holds within it a unique capacity to convey its own set of beliefs, motivations, dreams, & fears, as well as those of the past that continue to cast their shadows on the theatre of our collective memory.

Joe Sent MDE website

Joe Sent Me-poetry

mp3jackpot.com

4:21 PM

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May 28, 2009 - Thursday

'black & white': mp3 'jackpot'
Category: Music

Black and White
by Vanessa Daou
pop, urban/R&B, jazz

eye_present says: Vitaminsexia, what a stupendous MP3. Vanessa Daou is soo cool. Everyone knows how famous Ms. Daou is. I saw her when she appeared with Jamiroquai. A free song from her new CD "Joe Sent Me" is really great. This song is a collage of slow-burning smoky jazz, hazy Delta Blues, radiant electronic pop, and sultry soul you hope you'd find in a lounge in Paris.

mp3jackpot.com

8:27 PM

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May 28, 2009 - Thursday

vitaminsexia on 'Joe Sent Me'
Category: Music

Black and White
by Vanessa Daou
pop, urban/R&B, jazz

vitaminsexia says: Vanessa Daou's breathy whisper-singing is so perfectly suited to this sultry after-hours serenade. Joe Sent Me is her new album, in which she is backed by some super sophisticated acoustic jazz sounds with subtle and precise digital treatments that couldn't be more contemporary if they were made next week. Buy at iTunes Music Store.

mp34u

8:20 PM

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May 12, 2009 - Tuesday

Joe Sent M.D.E.: New York Times Calendar Events in New Jersey
Category: Music

WEST WINDSOR Kelsey Theater, West Windsor Campus, Mercer County Community College "Joe Sent MDE," a dance performance featuring the music of Vanessa Daou. May 16 and 17. $10 to $14. Kelsey Theater, West Windsor Campus, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road. kelseyatmccc.org (609) 570-3333

New York Times

4:25 PM

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