Sep. 11, 2007 - Issue #621: Sex in The City 07

New Sounds

Funki Porcini
Hed Phone Sex
Ninja Tune CAROLYN NIKODYM / carolyn@vueweekly.com

When I first came across Hed Phone Sex, I couldn’t help but think of that sex scene with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore in the ‘80s film About Last Night ... Lowe’s character has picked Moore’s up at the local pub and they are back at his place. Foreplay consists of them, each with giant headphones on, listening to Jermaine Jackson’s “Words Into Action.” But after sliding the CD into my beau’s stereo—where it fit perfectly, like CD and player were soul mates—I had to put Rob Lowe’s gorgeous (but cheesy) mug out of my mind. Funki Porcini (aka James Braddell) was sensually requesting my attention. I didn’t think that I’d ever heard a more apt album title.
The double CD (it also comes in single CD form), massages you with a two-hour romp of laid-back grooves that urges, prods and teases you back into bed with your lover, more than willing to cancel out on the party of the season. Funki Porcini tempts the cliché by using porn and porn-music samples in the mix of down-tempo drum ‘n’ bass, ‘90s trip-hop and breaks, but his subtlety underscores playfulness and humour—the perfect traits for a bed buddy.


Kate Bush
Hounds of Love
EMI

DAVID BERRY / david@vueweekly.com

First time you and that special someone are doing the dirty deed? Put Hounds of Love on now and thank me later. For starters, the fact that waifish vulnerability is the closest thing we have to a transcendental turn-on virtually guarantees that whoever you’re sleeping with, regardless of sex or sexual preference, will have had a crush on Ms Bush at some point, or at least will by the time the album is over, getting you some serious potential-mate points.
As for the music, the first half is all smoldering sexuality, a splendid blend of dance (“The Big Sky”) and melancholy (“Running Up That Hill”) that suggests both “I’m going to fuck you straight through this mattress” and “Please hold me when we’re done.” The back half, about a drowning girl, seems antithetical to the purpose, but we’re assuming here that first-time jitters keeps things a fair bit below the album’s 47-minute running time, giving you plenty of time for sensitive pillow talk—though hopefully the bounce of “Jig of Life” will remind you that you’ve still got a few tricks up your thighs.


Dietzche V and the Abominable Snowman
Macho: 2003-2007
Pop Echo

BRYAN BIRTLES / bryan@vueweekly.com

Dietzche V and the Abominable Snowman’s new “greatest hits” album, Macho: 2003-2007, is going to be the one that will get you through the upcoming long winter. With its fat bass, big beats and the sexiest synth lines this side of Gomorrah, DVAS is going to put you in the mood for the kind of thing that makes the cold bearable. And I’m not talking about Shredded Wheat with hot milk and brown sugar either.
I’m talking about fucking. There, I said it. DVAS’s Macho isn’t the kind of album you spread rose petals on the bed, light some candles and make love to—it’s for fucking. It’s for biting, scratching, licking, slapping, pouring hot wax on your partner’s chest, inviting a couple of friends to join, letting her do a line off your balls, wearing a chin dildo and not being able to go to work in the morning because you’re kinda walking funny and you don’t want to explain why.
So it’s not exactly a Barry White record, but trust me, it’ll do. Oh yes, it’ll do.


Etta James
Love Songs
MCA

MARY CHRISTA O’KEEFE / marychrista@vueweekly.com

Only a certain kind of woman can call a man “daddy” without getting all creepy about it. Or “boy,” for that matter. When pioneering R&B songstress Etta James tossed those endearments into songs, they denoted her position in relation to her man—whether she approached, eyes lowered, as a trembling submissive (“daddy”), or locked onto his as a fearless, predacious top (“boy”). Songs of (sexual) innocence and songs of (sexual) experience, if you will.
But beyond veiled references and double entendres (“I only ask for the chance to know the meaning of the word ‘surrender’”), the career-spanning classics that make up the compilation Love Songs are wildly romantic ditties that can barely be understood in the waning light of the contemporary post-Rules, post-Girls Gone Wild polarization of female sexuality.
James, who’ll be 70 in January, is what used to be known as a “belter.” Occasionally she teeters on a phrase in a broken whisper, but her voice is at its best billowing out like a sail behind the horns, buoyed along by the soul-stroll puh-puh-puh of the piano, swooning strings and languid rhythmic shuffle. At the dawn of R&B—the contemporaneous city cousin of early rock ’n’ roll—James’s dark skin, platinum blonde bouffant and sparkly gowns were the furthest thing from kitsch. Her music is likewise authentic, the emotion expressed concrete and un-ironic. Told in torch and spark, this is a catalogue of longing. What could be more intimate?


The Pixies
Doolittle
4AD

DAVID BERRY / david@vueweekly.com

If it looks as though you’re going to be spending the next 35 minutes of your life sweating through some thoroughly unsatisfying sex, do yourself a favour and pop in The Pixies’ classic to get yourself through the, ahem, “ride.”
Nothing gets out the frustration of not being able to finish watching your rented copy of Zodiac like the opening screech of “Debaser,” but that’s just one of the litany of disappointing sexual situations Doolittle can take care of. Are you a guy with stamina troubles? Skip to “There Goes My Gun” and laugh it off (or, if you’re feeling a little more romantic, try “Here Comes Your Man”). Are you a woman trying to fend off unwanted advances with a half-hearted handjob? “I Bleed” is subtle and effective.
Want to try to rekindle the flame after another disappointing session? See if “La La Love You” gets your mind off the cute barista. Want to finally end it all? Try “Hey” or “Gouge Away,” depending on how fighty you’re feeling. And if none of those situations come up, at least Dave Lovering keeps a solid beat, and both Frank Black and Kim Deal are decent fantasy fucks. (Double Bagger)

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