Dani Siciliano 'Slappers (Dig)' album

"If you speak, then speak your mind. Use your head, not your behind…" Following the critical success of her 2004 solo debut, Likes..., Dani Siciliano’s new album, Slappers, solidifies her position as one of the most passionate and original voices today. Gliding through house, disco, blues, pop, electronica, soul, and even a little country, with wit, verve and honesty, Slappers is an album that captures you with its melody before teasing you with its meaning. While Slappers knows its history, it is definitely an album that could only have been made today – one capable of making heads dance and feet think.

This isn’t a techno record or a dance record. Slappers is comparable to a singer– songwriter record written on the strings of a guitar, but like innovators before her, Dani prefers the 0s and 1s of electronics to balance out her voice and give the album a singular feel. Informed by Dani’s own past, Slappers is full of songs of dislocation. After all, Dani started in Arizona, then spent a long period in California before finally moving to England to work with Matthew Herbert. Her voice is very much caught somewhere in the mid-Atlantic stream. The electronic backdrop articulates that state, but at its core, Slappers is essentially about songs. Like her debut, Likes..., this new album is about intimate situations and the politics of emotion between people.

Primarily through her work with Matthew Herbert, Dani Siciliano has become one of electronic music's most recognizable voices. However, Dani's voice has also largely influenced Herbert's sound, helping to make his music more accessible as she has put the "sing" into "singular" on all the Herbert albums from 1998's Around The House to 2001's Bodily Functions, 2003's big band outing, Goodbye Swingtime and this year's Scale. On Slappers, Dani did much of the production herself, but in return for her many contributions to his work, Herbert shared some of the production duties. This dynamic is explored with some humor on Dani’s self-produced, self-sampling tongue-in-cheek song “Be My Producer” (a 100% all-Siciliano outing with beats sampled from that distinctive voice). Though they have worked together on many releases, Dani Siciliano and Matthew Herbert are two individual artists with individual ideas. She’s got her own bag of tricks and Slappers is Dani’s quest to find a musical realm of her own.

Stand-out tracks on this all-killer, no-filler album include the clipped funk of "Didn't Anybody Tell You" (built on the beat-boxing talents of Neil Thomas); the brooding, electronic soul of "They Can Wait" (where Dani built a percussion kit for drummer Leo Taylor sampled from American high school "True Love Waits" promise rings); "Why Can't I Make You High?" (featuring Ingrid and Kitty from cult teen band Kitty, Daisy And Lewis) — a brilliantly catchy digital-goes-country song that'll soundtrack campfire sing-a-longs for years to come; and the title track, a stomping call-to-arms where you'll find instruments made out of the sound of women's voices collected during a little soiree in Dani's kitchen one night - as well as the percussive sound of asses being slapped!

As a DJ who has played everywhere from Berlin to Sydney, Dani's deep love and playful knowledge of music is clear in her sets: obscure 12"s, classic cuts you forgot you loved and fresh mixes you're surprised no-one's thought of before. Disco, house, soul, a cheeky nod to acid, electro and techno — everything and nothing is sacred in Dani's box of party tricks.

Singer, producer, songwriter, DJ…Slappers confirms Dani Siciliano's place as one of the most exciting artists today.

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Dani Siciliano - Slappers (Dig)