Type \u201cWas Joan of Arc\u201d into Google and the suggested endings for this statement give you an accurate gauge of her place in pop culture: \u201cCatholic\u201d \/ \u201ca nun\u201d \/ \u201ccanonised\u201d \/ \u201ca prophet\u201d \/ \u201cFrench\u201d \/ \u201ca witch\u201d and so on. Related questions to \u201cWhat were Joan of Arc\u2019s last words\u201d on the info-sharing site Quora include \u201cWas Joan of Arc bisexual\u201d and \u201cWas Joan of Arc simply crazy?\u201d Everyone seems to agree this person was burned at the stake in 1431, but beyond that, Joan\u2019s narrative is an enigma. It is this lack of definition that the production duo Pillow Queen harnessed for their second release, Burn Me Up. Inverting the image of the devout Christian girl, the Joan who stands as this record\u2019s heroine was a heretic, a transvestite, most definitely a dyke and a hot femme-top at that.<\/p>\n
Opening up the A-side, the title track is a call\u2014 a battle cry, but also a summoning. In a time of need one calls upon their patrons and elders from history; a DJ beckons and gathers dancers to the floor; prayer and sweat go hand and hand. A traditional Irish bodhr\u00e1n drum beats out the first rhythms, joined by a steamy vocal sample that gets caught, chopped, and soon \u201cBurns Me Up\u201d is pumping along with organ chords and distorted keys. Pivoting away from the 4\/4 format, \u201cSubmission\u201d is a textured, downtempo slow-burner, with close-mic\u2019d vocals from Vani-T and the D. Tiffany\u2019s deft drum programming. When the choral pads come in, there\u2019s an echo of the 1990s German worldbeat project Enigma, with its Gregorian chants and flutes laid on top of lounge beats\u2014here, though, the chorus is stripped of kitsch, only driving the track deeper into a mood.<\/p>\n
If Burn Me Up\u2019s sequence of tracks is read as a kind of narrative, they seem to tell the story of Joan\u2019s last moments. \u201cBurn Me Up\u201d is, frankly, heat\u2014aggressive, the high-end crackles and the bass puts a pyre under one\u2019s feet. \u201cSubmission\u201d is like an exhale, a giving-in to death\u2019s grip; there is, along with the sensuous tread, a melancholy. It only makes sense that one flips the record to \u201cResurrection\u201d, which rolls in a tremolo\u2019d wail of pitched vocals for 30 seconds before a kick drum begins the 141-BPM march. The percussion is central here, as the track shifts between polyrhythms like a range of resuscitations, varied heartbeats. \u201cSalvation\u201d closes the record, again dialling back the tempo to the deep nod of dub. To no surprise, the scene of redemption here is not one of sunlit cherubs\u2014the church bell sample tolls one strike every few measures of bass-throb and shadow, while Vani-T intones, \u201cThen he lay down and died\u201d. Death can be salvation to some; living as many selves, living in contradiction, is a saving grace to many more.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":517922,"template":"","meta":{"ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[12362,8018],"product_tag":[32264],"giftcard-category":[],"musicartist":[26875],"musiclabel":[27535],"musicstyle":[37900,37919,38268,38021,38028],"distributormusic":[27533],"musicyear":[],"musiccountry":[39492],"weekmusic":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-517961","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-out-of-stock","7":"product_cat-back-in-stock","8":"product_tag-discogs","9":"musicartist-pillow-queen","10":"musiclabel-delicate-records","11":"musicstyle-breakbeat","12":"musicstyle-downtempo","13":"musicstyle-hip-hop","14":"musicstyle-techno","15":"musicstyle-trance","16":"distributormusic-one-eye-witness","17":"musiccountry-germany","19":"first","20":"outofstock","21":"featured","22":"taxable","23":"shipping-taxable","24":"purchasable","25":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/517961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"giftcard-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/giftcard-category?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"musicartist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/musicartist?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"musiclabel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/musiclabel?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"musicstyle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/musicstyle?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"distributormusic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/distributormusic?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"musicyear","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/musicyear?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"musiccountry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/musiccountry?post=517961"},{"taxonomy":"weekmusic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yoyaku.io\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/weekmusic?post=517961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}