Stephen Mejias

I wonder if Karen, over at Other Music, has gotten around to listening to Sex Worker’s The Labor of Love. I’d like to tell her about it. I probably wouldn’t tell her like this:

“PTSD” (for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, perhaps?) begins with scintillating and warbling minimalist electronics and subtle washes of restrained feedback, all gradually building and building into a cacophony of maniacal screams, demented moans, and horror movie organ. It sounds like the sort of stuff that would be trapped within the deranged mind. (I’m imagining.) A horrifying howl grows from the left channel, whips across the soundstage, and departs from the right channel to land, bloody and flopping, on the listener’s lap. Neat! Electronic warbles fade to black.

The following track, “Without You (Couldn’t Be Alone),” sounds like time passing through space. Intergalactic ping-pong. There’s the hint of female voice; it sort of floats there all by itself, detached from the body and from everything else, until suddenly we hear the sound of a mouth. The mouth opens and closes, it makes an attempt, it struggles, and, finally, it forms the words: “Without you.” And it repeats these words: “Without you, without you, without you.” A melody forms.

The B side is a single track. “No More” opens with a brighter-sounding drone, the touch of something like steel drums, flanged and dubbed-out, accompanied by a kick drum, a hi-hat, and unintelligible gibberish. Oh, fucking denial? Fuck you, denial? I can’t be sure. Chimes and tunnel sounds form a falling, blinking melody, while the beat continues in time. More yearning wails recall Linda Sharrock. Ooh, waaah, ooh. But this version is battered and dangerous, like an animal that’s been abused. The beat vanishes, the scintillating electronics soar, the beat returns stronger than before, the electronics cease and the melody returns, this time joined by moans and sighs. The moans and sighs continue on, outliving everything else, until there are only moans and sighs.

The Labor of Love is the solo debut from Mi Ami’s Daniel Martin-McCormick. He dedicates the album to “all trafficked humans and enslaved bodies.”