Danielle Dax
Pop-Eyes

I’ve been pondering for days: if I decide to go on a long on the road trip for my vacation, what should I bring to listen to in the car? The most obvious answer would be "a bit of everything," so I can change it up depending on my mood, the landscape, the speed, the time of day. It would be, if not for the fact that choosing "a bit of everything" is hard due to the many albums scattered around the house and especially because of the presence in the car of my partner and daughter! Okay, maybe I’ll bring two Stones albums—they’re evergreen—but if I bring the Electric Wizard, I risk a divorce with alimony for moral damages. And if I brought the Hash Jar Tempo? There you go, when I get back from the restroom at the rest stop, I’ll find out I’ve been abandoned with a note on my back saying "adopt me." Compromises, always compromises... what a pain! But to hell with it, I’ll bring Pop-Eyes by Danielle Dax, maybe I’ll listen to it around twilight, when the two "charming rogues" are dozing off.

Let’s jump to the fall/winter of 1985. I’m wandering aimlessly through the streets of my town, it’s raining and cold, and I take refuge in my favorite place, the record store a stone’s throw from the historic center where they allowed me to stay as long as I wanted, leafing through the myriad of shelves stuffed with vinyls of improbable, exotic, unknown titles, smelling of sharp, colorful notes. I was like a kid in a classic candy store, and as such, I would squander all my weekly allowance buying those irresistible treats. But let’s talk about the lovely Danielle. I happen upon this vinyl with the face of a young lady on the cover in profile (only years later would I discover that was not the original cover of the album, apparently too shocking for many people, but a reissue), anyway, as a typical boy, I am immediately attracted to it and seek enlightenment from my "trusted expert," the shop owner, who, just to earn his daily bread, would have sold me a Bananarama album (those girls are hot too). So between a "it’s like Cocteau Twins" and a "have I ever misled you?" I make my purchase, contributing to the future college tuition of his children.

I go home, put it on the turntable, and I’m puzzled. Cocteau Twins, my ass, what is this? I listen to it all the way through and file it away as "unlistenable junk." About a month later, I have it in my hands again (the record...), put it back on, and it starts to grab me. A mix of different styles and genres that a fifteen-year-old like me had never heard before, a combination of musical instruments from guitar to sax, and then keyboard, bass, banjo, trumpet, and flute. A seductive yet ghostly music and singing, like a modern-day Circe enchanting Ulysses. From track to track, it goes from tribal to ethereal, from Arabesque sounds to shrill and scratchy screams, to chants that sound like nursery rhymes and allusions to the Orient. In short, for me, it was like opening a door and beginning a journey (indeed, a journey) into "different" musical genres, unheard until then, combinations of jazz, soul, folk, electronics, and creative arrangements. All "stuff" that would be useful to me later when I would further broaden my musical horizons and beyond.

Only many years later did I learn that the album was entirely produced, written, played, and arranged by Dax and that the original cover itself is a work by the artist titled "Meat Harvest." A true all-around artist, perhaps incapable of those compromises (here they are again, those compromises...) that could have brought her to the mainstream instead of the British underground. Better this way.

You must understand I’m very attached to this LP, perhaps for more sentimental than artistic reasons, and maybe my judgment is influenced by all this and a bit disjointed. Nonetheless, it’s a work that’s not trivial, diversified, and intriguing. And I’m taking it on vacation with me!