Album Review: NANCY JANE - Nancy Jane

GENRE: pop/dance/electro
RATING: 8.5

I’ve been listening lately to a lot of clubby electro-pop records, those that remind you of a robotic figure version of Gloria Gaynor lending its lanky singing to a modern disco pulse and mercurial studio production. Sure, it brings to mind a suggestive image of LGBTs prowling in the dark alley of Malate for a night of clubbing and partying, or an obsessed Madonna fan following zealously the blonde bombshell’s futurist pop trend after the innovative breakthrough of 1998’s Ray of Light, but there’s more to its gay, almost provocative, beat-driven pop music that makes it a counterculture fixation: its mechanical and surrealist tendencies, its ability to sometimes divert you from the real world, far from the societal constraints and everyday life—and that itself, is refreshing.

From Madonna (Ray of Light, Music, Confessions on a Dancefloor) to Kylie Minogue (Fever, Body Language, X), Cher to Lady Gaga, M.I.A. to Blackout-era Britney Spears, this entire barrage of sing-songy, electro-trend acts (with status sex symbol up into their arse) deliver nothing but coked party tunes that makes everyone stow away from random stressors. With the aid of forward-thinking producers and the endless possibility of electronic music, it is also slowly gaining strong critical reception because it pushes the envelope for electronica and pop music to conjoin moods, sonic challenges and pop sensibility all at the same time, to convey a specific purpose or meaning. It’s no longer the same old, dumb robotic music made for gangbang romance; now, it’s called blissful dance music that welcomes complexity and innovation in form.

In response to this growing trend that spawned dancefloors and generation of midnight sex turfs, local record label Warner Music Philippines decided to join the bandwagon by devising its own version of a disco vixen—sultry and all. Warner picked a minor TV personality with potential sex symbol status, someone who is just like Kylie Minogue, a former soapstar in Australia. By accident, they’ve turned their heads to actress-model Nancy Castiliogne, after stumbling down on the unofficial demo song produced by DJ Brian Cua called “When You Play Around.” The record executives who heard the track were impressed by Nancy’s slightly nasal, but-perfect-for-raver-moments singing style, so they signed her up, decided to drop her surname “Castiliogne” for a meaner, sexier and easy to pronounce “Jane” and the rest as they say, is history.

Armed with a new name and established music producers/collaborators (Brian Cua, Rico Blanco, Bimbo Yance, Ricci Chan and Benjamin Gabitan among others), Castiliogne’s self-titled debut Nancy Jane scampers around various retro-modern dance music influences (house, trance, electro disco, cosmic disco, eurodance) and revels a shameless mirrorballsiness out of filtering her mesmerizingly thin voice on spatial modern discos and Hed Kandi-inspired anthems. It’s the perfect heir to Kylie Minogue, Sophie Ellis Bextor or post-90’s Madonna, as it favors a sensuous, club-oriented pop music centering on sensuality, love, unadulterated relationships and none of those pretentious philosophical musings that a lot of singers have explored failingly.

As expected, the songs in Nancy Jane contains hook factor and infectious moments, but at the same time, it accommodates finesse in stylistic frivolity, like a clockwork electronic pop record that seeks to define chart music’s latest edge. “Love Song”, Nancy Jane’s first single, is a declaration of this impressive feat: easily likeable, fun, clean-cut, dance-pop tart that even adult contemporary fans would enjoy. Its chirpy hooks and bubblegum electro-feel sustains Nancy Jane’s sultry flair, but with a sticky-sweet image and an inrush of confidence now imbibed in her singing. Credit also goes to the slick production of DJ Brian Cua, who builds a cascade of delicate sonics and samples, like a Stuart Price studio treatment, only softer and a bit languid.

As much as Castiliogne steals the show with her crushing twee, Cua’s evading templates help garnish the songs with compelling house music details and a sleeper lounge vibe, resulting for a mesmerizing air. This delightful work from Cua is evident on “Love Song,” “Without You,” the Kaskade-influenced track “Hold You Close,” and the chill-out fantasia “Deep Inside of You,” featuring layered percussions and world music touches.

Other than Cua, former Rivermaya frontman Rico Blanco also shares his studio wizardry in the hypnotic, ambient swirling “Moonlight Mood” and displays his writing chops on the very catchy, stalker anthem “Control.” His role as part of the A&R and not as a revered, artsy musician might have compromised his artistic intentions for Nancy Jane, but his other side—house/trance venturing, loose lyrics, gauchely commercial ideas—validates his versatility as an artist and his secret love for, uhm, Kylie Minogue (In a year-end list interview with Pulp Magazine, he cited Kylie’s Fever as one of his favorite albums of 2002, along with The Strokes’ Is this It?).

More than the producers and collaborators who shaped Nancy Jane’s entrancing club sound, Castiliogne also shares limelight weight and equal praise. Without her trademark vocals—nasal, light as a feather, bred with Canuck English accent—there wouldn’t be any twee factor, something that the country’s disco vixen has that similar local dance pop artists (G Toengi, Vina Morales, Geneva Cruz, among others) don’t have. Clearly, this projects the kind of successful partnership that happens between a pop singer and her creative posse of producers and collaborators.

As evident in the craftsmanship of the songs, Nancy Jane’s self-titled debut album proves that a great record doesn’t necessarily have to be unconventional, intellectual and un-pop. Sometimes, all it needs is a universal sound that streamlines between simplicity and earnestness and an indelible hook to play around.