CD Reviews

Jessica 6 | See the Light

Peacefrog (2011)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 9, 2011

3.0 Stars

There is an odd paradox in the modern Western way of appreciating music-as-art: musical pieces that get enshrined on top of the pillar of "art" tend to be those with little-to-no practical utility. Thus, no genre is treated quite as disposably as dance music, even though much of society's fringe movers reside there. Decades' worth of dance music have slipped in all manner of subversive matter betwixt groove beats and swooshing, pulsing undulation. NYC disco crew Jessica 6, led by transgender sex bomb Nomi Ruiz, is an offshoot of Andy Butler's vintage-disco-obsessed Hercules & Love Affair, and, like Hercules, this first long-player of theirs hews closer to the classic-house sound of decades past than the post-Eurovision whump that has taken over modern American radio in the past decade. See The Light has an airy feel that is more suited not only to actual dancefloor dancing (rather than the thump-until-blackout oblivion of most current electro) but to the gentle torch-song pull of Ruiz's emotive bleat. All classic diva house transports intense sadness to your mind through the Trojan Horse of bouncy dance music (the aforementioned subversion), and Light is full of these equine bombs, whether in the take-it-down sway of "Like a Prisoner" or the strobing whoosh of "U Motion." You may move from the wall thanks to the seductive groove, but the inner torment gloriously mixes tears and sweat.

Topics: CD Reviews , Dance, Disco, New Music, More

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