QUITZOW – juice water
(CD, young love)
More pop music to add a little
enlightening to your mind by the pure force of melody rather than rational
reasoning. Quitzow is the late night pop meets electronic noise on a
dancefloor somewhere in the mountains project of Erica Quitzow. She writes
wonderful pop songs and then adds subtle four to the floor dance beats that
command some group dancing, only that she will also add some trickery and
wizardry to adorn these songs with noises and distortion effects here and
there. The variety then ranges from as nice as it gets (“Let out all the
crazy”) to a late Eighties indie dancefloor stomper (“The Cut”). The
latter one should be heard around indie discos on the whole northern
hemisphere, if the world was a just place. I wonder if the hard to see woman
on the cover of the record, in a petticoat cocktail dress riding a
motorcycle, is Quitzow herself? If not, then it is nevertheless a great
metaphor of her music: the fine dress of pop music and the energy and
wildness of rock’n’roll and the crazy filters of the dancefloor
lifestyle.
Read this excerpt from her bio
and you’ll know what I mean: “homeless teen dragging around a guitar and
a violin … sleeping on beaches in Mexico … exploring North and West
Africa … endlessly hitchhiking through the US … homes in Manhattan, San
Francisco and Los Angeles”. The advantages of a good old hippie education
come to fruition. And after all, are you really sure that after his last
solo album it is really the time to call out for “More Keith Richards”?
But then again, between the crazy keyboard sounds she also sings: “truth
not fantasy” and “more excess” and I am pretty sure she is judging a
recent date in that song, so you know where this story is heading to, right?
Erica Quitzow’s voice lends
itself to that kind of lifestyle very well, by ringing with all kinds of
undertones underneath the light ring that fits perfectly to pop music. A
voice that underneath all the disco and pop, the layers of keyboards and
studio trickery still shines to show real experiences of real people and
real problems. Unlike Lady Gaga, Quitzow seems to be a real person bringing
her real personality into her songs. I guess she does not first think about
what to wear, when writing a song, but about the song and the melody. On the
other hand, what do I know about Lady Gaga? I endure her music when I have
to and otherwise try to forget mainstream, top of the pops pop music.
On the other hand, apart from
the music on this, her third album, what do I know about Quitzow? Maybe
someday Quitzow will make it to top of the charts as well. A track like
“whatever” with its rap lines and heavy chorus dance beat certainly
hints to ambitions in that way. But as long as she shares the production
duties with Gary Levitt – with whom she has been working on his Setting Sun
project as well – I guess that is no real risk. No superstar does his own
productions, that would be too risky. Do you remember the Ting-Tings? Maybe
she is the invention of a clever indie-producer who has set up a whole scene
of people? Maybe all of this and more only exists in my brain? Paranoia and
insanity is easy to come by these days, with the internet and everything.
But as long as the music keeps ringing I don’t care. As long as the steady
beat and buzzing keyboards of “Money Talks” keeps me entertained, I keep
on enjoying myself.
