I hadn’t heard anything about Siobhan Donaghy for almost four years, so it really must have been a ‘twist of fate’ that led me to her MySpace page earlier this year. There, I heard an incomprehensible siren-like singing interwoven into an ethereally beautiful soundscape that got me instantly hooked. The song, called “Ghosts”, was a foretaste of the same-titled album, which has finally been released this week.
The pale teenage girl has turned into a beautiful woman, whose music doesn’t have much in common with the current sound of the Sugababes, her former band. Instead, it’s compared to the likes of Kate Bush and the henna-clad Madonna of the “Ray of Light” era (I’d also throw some Tori Amos in there). But “Ghosts” is telling its own tale, with electronic ambient sounds, dream-like melodies and of course Siobhan’s fantastic voice. Responsible for the blend is producer James Sanger.
I completely love the album! For me, there’s no weak track on it (except maybe “Sometimes” – it’s not bad, though, just not my kind of song). Looking at my iTunes playlist, I see four 4-star songs and a fantastic six 5-star songs. That’s 4.5 out of 5 Stardust Specks altogether! It’s hard to decide on favourite tracks, but at the moment I’d choose “Ghosts” and “Halcyon Days” (the latter reminding me of the wonderful “Teardrop” by Massive Attack).
After her last album wasn’t the hoped-for success, Siobhan got the boot by her then record company. I really hope that she won’t suffer the same fate with “Ghosts”, as it would be a shame to see safe mainstream pop prevail again over music that is so sophisticated and extraordinary as Siobhan’s. So listen to the album now (for example on iTunes or at her MySpace) – and if you like it, buy it!
When I visited Venice last September, I almost missed the modern art exhibition “Where are we going?” in the impressive Palazzo Grassi at the Canal Grande. I had dragged my mum there solely for the fact that it was Tadao Ando who had renovated the Palazzo (even though I quit my architecture course some years ago, my love for Ando lasts). But already being there, and seeing the signs and posters and Jeff Koons’s “Balloon Dog (Magenta)” floating outside on the canal (see picture above), we decided to pay the admission charge and take a closer look. My mum wasn’t that impressed (she preferred the Peggy Guggenheim Collection) but I loved it! Generally speaking, it was very colorful, very kitschy, very bold, very, well, modern. There were a lot of exhibits I liked, too many to name them all, for example the installation “Vintage Violence” by Urs Fischer, David Hammons’s sculptures or the paintings by Cy Twombly.
It wasn’t until after my return that I found out that the Palazzo Grassi and the works of art it contains belong to François Pinault, a French billionaire (and future father-in-law of Salma Hayek). He tried to have a new museum built in Paris, but after this plan didn’t work out, he decided to opt for Venice and the Palazzo Grassi instead – where the new exhibition of the Collection Pinault starts today! It is called “Sequence 1: Painting and Sculpture from the François Pinault Collection” and is going to last until November 11th. You can read more about it on Spiegel Online (if you can read German, that is). Urs Fischer and David Hammons are there again, with different pieces this time. As for what I like, I can’t really tell on the sole basis of the small pictures on the website (the “Flying Curve” by Kristin Baker looks intriguing though). I’d really love to go to Venice again to visit this exhibition, maybe I can persuade my mum a second time.
