InvasiveThoughts.com

Jessica Vale

The Sex Album

Explicit Records

by Brooke Palmer

          In an urban New York City studio, complete with artists and musicians and the occasional squatter and crack addict, experimental musician/recording artist Jessica Vale rushes to create as much art as possible before the building is transformed into upscale condos. The young artist is about to premier her second album, “Brand New Disease.” With a dark and sultry voice, Vale’s songs remind one of a variety of other memorable vocalists like Chrissy Hynde and Mazzie Star, but with her own emotional perspective evident in simplistic lyrics. The album is interesting and at times haunting, but not particularly erotic. So why is Jessica Vale appearing in our erotic issue?

            We were introduced to Miss Vale in reference to her debut album, "The Sex Album." Are things starting to make sense? Of course many pop stars and musicians of all genres have created erotica-themed albums, so why focus on Jessica’s? What’s different about her Sex Album is that the electronic musical experiment is composed entirely from the sounds of live sex. Electronically-manipulated to transpose sex sounds into musical tones and beats, her songs accomplish something unique and strange and, clearly, erotic.

            Though Jessica is occasionally disappointed that attention to their album's intent as experimental is upstaged by its sexual concept, she is grateful and surprised at the attention that the album has received. “The Sex Album was really meant to be an experiment among friends. We thought we would put it online on MySpace and people might find it interesting; that’s all we thought would come out of it. Such a whirlwind of attention came we were taken off guard,” explained Vale.

How could the act of attaching electronic recording devices to couples’ body parts in order to capture the sounds of their lovemaking not get attention? On top of the craziness of the project itself, Jessica’s lyrics and vocal style combine with the upbeat sex music to make a very fun, crass, and at times dark and even satirical erotic piece of art. (Example, the chorus of the song Disco Libido: “Disco Libido, now we must dance….. {exhale}….so later we fuck.”) And the attention from the album has not hurt her career any as she’s expanded her music from a recording project to a live one complete with a full band.

            For the sake of this issue, I of course wanted to know about "The Sex Album." After getting hooked on some of my favorite tunes on the album, such as "Boy In Black," "Disco Libido," and "The One Over There," I talked with Jessica via telephone. Here’s what I learned:

How did the making of this album affect your relationship with your boyfriend [boyfriend Ivan Evangellsta was one of the three artists, including Jessica and Jean-Luc Cohen, to create the album]? Did it become erotically inspiring to you both?

Absolutely not in any way. We came up with the original idea sitting around with Jean-Luc over a few drinks. Once we were actually working on it, it was un-erotic hard work and very technical. We chose [the couples] because they were willing to do this, not because they were attractive. I can’t say I was sexually attracted to any of them.

With so much technicality involved in recording the sex acts, was any of the intimacy of the act itself lost?

It was awkward. There were a few of the couples that seemed genuinely comfortable all the way through and other people that thought they would find it more erotic than they actually did. It was more of an artistic or creative venture rather that some weird way to have sex.

Were particular sounds or rhythms requested of the couples (such as spankings) or was it all totally freeform in which the result later drove the sound of each individual song?

It varied. When we first started we collected as much recording as we could. We would sort through them and listen to different things that would lend themselves to particular sounds and songs. After a couple songs were done, we got a few couples to come in for specific things. We did stuff like spanking and incorporated different toys into the recordings.

Were particular couples matched intentionally with particular songs?

We wrote the songs in most cases beforehand. We wrote the lyrics and melodies and then collected the sounds. The couples were just providing us instruments to use.

The songs conceptually already existed but as the album evolved, some songs came after we had the idea to record live sex. It was really very comparable to writing an album with traditional instruments.

Whose voice do we hear talking about love in the song "The One Over There"?

That’s me. It was spontaneous, stream of consciousness, very much from the thoughts at the time a few years ago [when she first fell in love with her boyfriend], how it feels to be in a new relationship, everything you’re thinking in real time. Most of the album’s songs were inspired by years and years of writings and experiences.

In another article I read, you mentioned Velcro and bathtubs. What props were provided? Where exactly were the sessions recorded?

It was at the couples’ apartments and they used their own props. Whatever they were comfortable with.

In the article I read, you also mentioned the darker and frightening sides of sex in relation to certain songs. Tell me about the song "Sarajevo" which also appears on your new album.

I think "Sarajevo" was inspired by being there. The first time we [Jessica and Ivan] had taken a trip over there was pretty close to after the war was over. It was a very intense and extremely emotional experience seeing what had been done to that city and talking to the people, also paired with the fact that Ivan and I were over there together and it was a new relationship. Great feelings of being in love paired with depressing, intense feelings of seeing a war-torn city. It’s on the new album because it’s a song that everyone loved and it was going over extremely well live. We liked the new version with the band a little better. We felt it deserved to be on the new album.

Tell me about the new album, "Brand New Disease." How is it different from "The Sex Album"?

The biggest difference is I have a full band now. I got to write songs I always wanted to put out with a full band, including violin, cello, sax. I’m extremely proud of it. The energy you can capture in a live setting with a band is hard to capture on the computer. To me, going on stage and playing live with this band of guys behind me with this loud, aggressive music is one of the best feelings in the world. I could never achieve that with "The Sex Album."

What do you think is the difference between erotica and porn?

The audience, the person watching determines that. Some people are very offended by erotica. I’m not offended by any of it. Porn doesn’t bother me at all. I think it’s perfectly fine. Erotica has a more artistic bent on it, but I’ve heard people argue about the artistic bent on porn. It’s very subjective. In the case of video, sex recorded onto video as cheaply as possible with the pure intention of getting people off is porn. Erotica has a little more to offer. One of the many reasons that we composed the music the way we did on "The Sex Album" is because there is a lack of dark and intense sexual music out there.