Jarboe
The Men Album

LA RECENSIONE

Jarboe enters the musical world by pure chance. While she was baking cookies, a piece by the Swans came on the radio that struck her. She called the radio station, got the band's name, and bought the LP, on which there was an address to contact Michael Gira. The two met and fell in love. Jarboe became an official member of the Swans and irreversibly changed them, shifting them from cacophony to the experimental ballads of albums like Children of God.

In '98, the end. Jarboe is first ousted from the Swans, and then the band falls apart (these days their reunion album should be released, obviously without her).

Michael Gira was the father figure of the Swans. He helped Jarboe record her solo Thirteen Masks and carry out the project Skins, but, as he insisted on highlighting, they were "beautiful songs and nothing more."

Jarboe attempted suicide during that same period. From that experience, the tragic album Anhedoniac was born. Then some projects where she lends her voice.

Jarboe has never been a genius, neither compositionally nor is her voice as powerful as she would like. When I found out she was working on a double CD titled Men Album, my heart sank. "Oh no," I thought, "an unnecessary album of duets." Nothing could be further from the truth. The double album was released in October 2005, but there are very few duets. It is an album made from the collaboration of more and less known male musicians, including Blixa Bargeld, Edward Ka-spel, Jim Thirlwell (Foetus), and others, whom I admit in my profound ignorance, I had never heard of, but nevertheless, the result is very good.

The work is divided into two parts. The first CD is guitar-based, and the delightful and radio-friendly This is life opens the dance. But it's the only track of its kind on the album; surely you didn't expect a rock 'n roll album from Living Jarboe, did you? It continues with less pleasant and less immediate tracks with the insertion on tracks 7 and 8 of the werewolf howls by Blixa Bargeld (who knows why the latter gets so much credit for his voice).

The second CD is based on digital rhythms. Jarboe is less Nico and more Danielle Dax. And perhaps it's the less successful part, a bit too dull. Moreover, Jarboe, in my opinion, isn't suited for electronic experiences; her voice is more valid when accompanied by real instrumentation.

I don't know what Jarboe has done since then; I believe she has released other things, but I haven't come across her again, maybe because I haven't read specialized magazines for a long time. I hope this album brought her some serenity; I hope one day I'll come across more of her material, perhaps in some now-rare record store.

The record would be a 3.5, but I round up because my rating varies based on my mood swings.