Danielle Dax

This is the space that you stole yesterday, yeah

And you left in return a bad bad soul

Silence all your lies with a knife, silence all your lies with a knife

Lying in the folds where your blood has dried today

("Fortune Cheats", Danielle Dax)

Experimentalist Danielle Gardner, known by the stage name Danielle Dax, emerged from the murky waters of the Berkshire underground in the late 1970s. Her brief but eclectic stint in the art-punk duo Lemon Kittens, which boasted the presence of a young Karl Blake (Current 93), shaped her to the point of sparking an interest in the emerging synthetic minimalism of the time, combined with a varied approach to the territories of art pop. Blending inspired vocal influences à la Kate Bush, a tribal inventiveness fully in the style of Public Image Ltd, and chilling esoteric touches drawn from dark-punk formalism, her talent came to the fore on the dazzling "Pop-Eyes" (Initial Recording, 1983). Featuring unsettling artwork, the album was entirely played, produced and arranged by the English musician, the architect of a staging that verges on the grotesque: too freakish to be goth and too unconventional for the traditional canons of post-punk, Danielle Dax's genius has over time been largely forgotten, save for a modest niche of fans who continue to support her work.

Following the avant-garde path of her previous work, "Jesus Egg That Wept" (Awesome, 1984) proves to be a worthy successor to those quirky, at times fairy-tale-like melodies. Housed in a striking cover artwork by Holly Warburton, the EP offers six brand-new compositions, each entirely different from the next. Halfway through the tracklist we find the minimal wave piece "Here Come The Harvest Burns", which had already appeared on "Pop Eyes" and was left off the first European CD pressing, released in 1994. In 2012 a far better job was done with a remastered Japanese papersleeve edition, which also includes the esoteric "Timber Togue" (Biter of Thorpe, 1995), influenced by electro-industrial sounds.

The experimental rock opener "Evil-Honky Stomp" slaps the listener in the face with the disorienting character of the production. Explicitly anti-racist, the track evokes the instinct of wild life, the constant hunt for an enemy, and the obscurantism of religious sects. A sinister honky tonk piano blends with a vaguely boogie guitar riff: out of nowhere comes the English artist's explosive voice, marked by remarkable vibrato work. The darkwave piece "Pariah" taps into the occult side of her art: among her most mature compositions, it sees Dax transform into a mesmerizing nocturnal vampire, wandering through silent, innocent streets and drawing the listener's attention.

The following track, "Fortune Cheats", grabs you from the start with its full-blown dark cabaret intro: gradually the track slips into a ragged blues, propped up by a pulsing post-punk bassline that plays off Dax's warm voice. It all culminates in a deliciously doo-wop refrain, spiced up by a lethal tenor sax.

And the track fades gently away, closing out side A.

Side B opens with "Hammerheads", an industrial-dub track whose sample appears to come from Kate Bush's "The Dreaming". Right after, the neo-psychedelic "Ostritch" stands out for the hypnotic rhythms of its drum machine and its unabashedly Frippian riffs. Built around an ingenious reversed drum pattern, the closing track "The Spoil Factor" surprises with its intimate atmosphere and embryonic synth textures. It could go on forever, and yet it stops.

Among the British musician's most original works, "Jesus Egg that Wept" turns out to be anything but a mere style exercise — rather, a small travel diary that manages to surprise down to the smallest detail.

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10/05/2026