Genre: Experimental
Track Listing:
01 Crush Material
02 Masque
03 Lipstick
04 The Supplicant
05 Emperor of Daffodils
06 Love Object / Girlstuff
07 Narcisse
Emperor of Daffodils is “a sonic essay on narcissism and the idolatry of beauty” according to Joe Frawley’s statement; an exploration of the bizarre world of teenager internet cosmetic vanity, threading into the murky worlds of Mr Frawley’s imagination. This strange adventure into “feminine beauty rituals” certainly has to be one of the most unusual and original concept album ideas I have encountered.
For this release Frawley recruited Rachel Rambach’s emotive vocals and Greg Conte’s atmospheric guitar work, with the other elements of the tracks (piano, sweeping synths, electronic devices, and haunting samples) provided by Frawley himself.
Emperor of Daffodils is a little like a hypnotic hall of mirrors. The use of samples from teenage You Tube “me putting on my makeup” clips is nothing short of haunting. By looping these fragments of monologue and weaving them through almost treacly feel-good synth, Frawley has managed to create a sound painting that is decidedly unsettling.
The empty image-obsession that is part and parcel of the last few decades of many teenage girls’ socialised identity peels apart under the sonic scalpels this release wields, the pensive piano strains and washed out vocals laying open a deeply sinister vein in the worlds of young women’s self-objectification.
It is ambiguous as to whether Frawley approves or disapproves of this strange universe of “Girlstuff” – lipstick and eye liner and mirrors. One wonders whether he doesn’t somehow get off on these strange internet displays of vanity; the mood of this album is almost such that it could be the soundtrack for underage porn, or a the least a sleazy voyeuristic expose.
I guess Frawley has succeeded in drawing us into the potentially grotesque world of girls and teenagers winding into sexual identities that they are not truly grown enough to wear. He forces us to look at them with the eye of the lecherous and manipulative older man somehow, and it is an unpleasant identity to be coaxed into wearing.
Frawley has really touched a nerve with this release, in short. One could interpret it as a fascinating feminist critique of female superficiality; or interpret it as a seedy and distasteful exercise in the patriarchal abuse of the gaze. And mixed into all of that, too, is a genuine respect and affection for this world of practices and ideals.
Frawley doesn’t give anything away, and the result leaves one tempted to withdraw into self-righteous condemnation of Frawley’s raw exploration, or else into deeper questions about identity, gender, and power.
In a way this release is as much as essay as it is a body of music, and the depth of Frawley’s ability to realise his concept in sound also somewhat hems him in. It is the very precision of his evocation that also weakens the album – as a whole it is so aggressively specific in its mood and aspect, and so unsettling, that it is hard to appreciate in the same way as most other music.
This is not necessarily a criticism of the album, but it does mean that it might struggle to appeal to many folk because of its very uniqueness.
Ultimately as a reviewer I cannot really relate to the motivation to create a whole musical release around a concept like this, and in a way I find the experience of this music somewhat repellent in its evocation of the implicit violence of the male gaze that seems almost inevitably bound up in the superficial extremes of teenage female vanity.
However one has to give full respect to Frawley and his collaborators for really nailing the idea perfectly, for drawing the listener so fully into this simultaneously mundane and disturbing landscape. This is definitely a release that could teach other composers a thing or two about their craft.
