Jarboe
Thirteen Masks

Listening to Jarboe's solo debut, one gets the impression that with this work, the muse of the Swans wanted to give free expression to all those impulses that she wasn't able to unleash within the main band.
Hip-hop, electronics, industrial, esoteric litanies, heart-wrenching singer-songwriter: the sounds explored in this "Thirteen Masks" (released in 1992 and containing recordings from different periods) are decidedly diverse.
Amalgamating it all: the undeniable charisma of the singer and the continuous references to the art of the Swans. Also because, for the record, members of the Swans themselves, including the indispensable Michael Gira (partner in life with Jarboe herself), participate in "Thirteen Masks", contributing as a producer, musician, and co-author of some tracks.
Worth noting, finally, is the participation in the recordings of Jim Thirlwell (aka Foetus), one of the most fertile minds of the industrial universe and already a producer of the first Swans' albums.

It is, however, good to clarify from the beginning that we are not in front of a Swans album: "Thirteen Masks", purged of Gira's immeasurable obsessions, turns out to be rather "catchy" (an adjective that still needs to be adjusted considering the artists in question) and more akin to the works released under the name Skin (ethereal incarnation of the Gira/Jarboe partnership). It is the "metaphysical" offshoot of the Swans that develops and strangles the physicality of the husband like an octopus, without losing its paranoid and morbid traits.

And right from a Skin album seems to emerge the evocative opener "Listen", which acts as an initiation track. A blatant invitation to penetrate the hallucinated world of Jarboe and go through the gallery of masks behind which her true essence hides: a respectable dark lady, strong, sometimes violent, but incredibly fragile and vulnerable at the same time.
In this kind of schizophrenia that sees the singer split in two, sometimes a tender girl, sometimes a furious-disillusioned-alcoholic-sensual-fatal mature woman who doesn't give a damn about you and everything about you, lies the mood swings of this multicolored work.

A work where the singer demonstrates not only her ability to move in the most diverse contexts but also her capability to reinterpret the most dissimilar styles and bend them to the dark shades of her charisma. An overflowing, rampant personality, that of Jarboe, able to emerge clear in every single moment of this multifaceted yet fake masquerade. Fake because among the grooves of an exaggerated transformism, Jarboe ends up revealing herself in her most complete nudity: "Thirteen Masks" is a mad carousel that, with its contradictions, redundancies, and continuous references, ends up retracing the winding and unpredictable path of someone who expresses themselves through free associations in the midst of a psychoanalytic session.

The lively "Red" is a deviated hip-hop where the singer's effected voice urges fiercely on rampant bases, while the dissonant chorus recalls Swans-like echoes. "A Man of Hate (Lord Misery)" is instead a litany that brings us back again to the more gothic Skin, amidst infantile regressions and invocations from a fearsome sorceress (the chilling final howl, worthy of the most horrific Diamanda Galas, is frightening).

Certainly not missing are heart-rending acoustic ballads ("The Lonely Voyeur", "The Oblivion Seekers (Of Ancient Memory)", and the concluding "Cries (For Spider)"), betraying a certain, never-hidden passion for American folk. Nor are we deprived of authentic assaults of rampant obsessive and declamatory industrial as the best Swans tradition dictates ("I Got a Gun" and "Freedom", the latter of only percussion and voices).

But that's not all: if "Wooden Idols" boasts a calm jazzy background from a smoky night club, delivering a Jarboe in a state of grace and surprisingly sugar-coated, "Shotgun Road (Redemption)", opened by the sound of rain and supported by gloomy piano beats, is a desolate catacombal blues that manages to perfectly combine singer-songwriter needs with the singer's irrepressible gothic soul.

"The Believers", a sort of paranoid electro-industrial, providentially burdened by guitars and organ, cannot say no to more typically dancefloor settings, while the seductive "The Never Deserting Shadow", enveloping in melody, ends up sounding catchy, but without yielding to sly commercial temptations.

A desire to have fun and experiment, then, but above all to escape, at least for an hour, from the oppressive world of the Swans. An album that arises from artistic escape needs, and for this reason, there will be naivetés, spontaneity, the understandable lightness that are typical of someone venting and letting out their liberating scream. But the acoustic reprise of the hypnotic "A Man of Hate", a key moment of the work, reminds us that despite everything, we are dealing with a restless, tormented, torn soul. A soul in which strength and fragility, anger and disillusionment, insecurity and the need for affection, morbidity and tenderness, impatience for prevailing hypocrisy and a desire for revenge constantly meet and clash (damn, how much of a woman you are, Jarboe!!!).

Jarboe doesn't have the prophetic depth of a Nico. Nor does she shine with the boldness of a Siouxsie. Nor does she possess the vocal properties and traumatizing power of a Diamanda Galas: far from any other colleague, from yesterday and today, she rather reminds us of the most oblique and surreal Bowie, an influence that emerges forcefully throughout the course of the work, more than it does in the works with the Swans.

Like it or not, it cannot be denied that Jarboe has been and still is (think of the formidable collaboration a few years ago with Neurosis) an artist who has a lot, a lot to say, and who certainly deserves a place of honor among the most irreverent, transgressive, and courageous female voices of our times. Let yourself be seduced...