The Sex Album? Hmm… isn’t sex the subject of just about every song ever written? Well, this one, by artist Jessica Vale, isn’t just about sex – it’s actually composed from sex. Lemme explain: the deal here is that all the music on this CD (which can be best described as Wax Trax-style industrial-Goth) was created by manipulating the sounds made by people fucking. No kidding. And it’s a pretty impressive feat (courtesy Vale and cohorts Ivan Evangelista and Jean-Luc Cohen), turning moans and groans into dark, decadent beats and hums. The problem comes when Vale adds her own voice to the mix – she’s got a sultry, dusky tone that’s 100% right for the project, but her lyrics are trite in a “Diary of a Sulky Teenager” way. “Boy in Black” is a heart-fluttering tribute to a hipster (“His hair’s a little longer/Thoughts a little darker” – hoo boy), while the chorus for “Disco Libido” goes “Disco libido/Now we must dance/So later we’ll fuck” – seriously. In between, the songs vacillate between the pros (“Look Pretty”) and cons (“Sweet 16”) of informal rough sex and the joy of finding the perfect partner (the gushy “The One Over There Is Mine”), all of which would make for interesting song material, were they not trapped in Vale’s self-indulgent verbiage (“Love is so fucking generic/Love describes too many things”… yeah, yeah). Still, I can see this going over like gangbusters with the 21-and-under crowd who’ve found Hot Topics and Jane magazine way too jejune.

 CD website: thesexalbum.com
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