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March 05, 2008
MS Pick - Dawn Landes
There's a certain type of vulnerability that takes over when you get robbed, effecting even the toughest, most resilient people. Especially true when the crime occurs in a residence rather than, for example, a car or subway.
A smack of dejected helplessness poisons the welfare of the home environment following a break in. Feelings of defenselessness towards a sudden, invisible enemy lurking in the neighborhood. While some of us may turn towards unhealthy substances to deal with the increased anxiety that follows our living space being violated, others consider moving, or at least stepping up security for a better sleep at night. Whatever the coping measures chosen, those first nights will not result in the soundest of slumbers.
Yet others turn around and take loss as inspiration to pen a lovely song. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky and burglarized while living in Brooklyn, anti-folk artist Dawn Landes wrote "Bodyguard" in her kitchen while waiting for the cops to arrive after discovering a break-in. Bandits made out with a keyboard, a laptop and a hard drive -- which housed a finished album, her second. While still in the immediate shock of realizing she became an unwilling crime statistic, work immediately began on new material.
"Bodyguard" gives you the feel of fresh visceral emotion that exists only fleetingly in the immediate reaction to trauma. Lyrics like "erased our signatures from things" and "they stole the subjects from your paintings/ but left the canvas on the frame" punctuate the frustrating loss of her irreplaceable music while slyly referencing the ultimately meaningless and easy replaceability of the physical devices housing the work. It's a clever disguise for deeply personal vulnerability while subconsciously cuing defense mechanisms of acceptance.
With the original music lost and gone forever Landes was forced to work from scratch on a second album. Fireproof dropped yesterday from Cooking Vinyl records.
//Dawn Landes - Fireproof - buy
//Myspace
//site
Posted by Merry Swankster at March 5, 2008 12:42 PM
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Comments
I'm sorry, but it's really hard for me to feel bad for an artist that doesn't make safety copies of their album. But good luck with the new one...
Posted by: Adam Mez at March 5, 2008 06:10 PM
