Absolutely knock-out lost Suzanna Ciani expert from 1982 in which she reinvents herself as the titular Steve, an imagined gay male alter-ego that emerged as a result of her pitching her voice to 0.8. On ‘Steve Goes to A Party’, the transfiguration is an opportunity to engage Ciani’s most playful impulses, fashioning a borderline absurdist proto-electro anthem that channels Dark Entries alumni Sexual Harassment and The Pool but with an even (un)healthier dose of sass. B-sides ‘Steve Saves the World’ and ‘Happy Birthday Wishes’ (an ode to Ciani’s then boyfriend, Alfred) arrived a few years after the A side, embracing downtown house and sparkling tecno-pop in equal measure, and fully flesh out the persona in undeniably addictive fashion. These are unquestionably joyous creations that only partially disguise Ciani’s experimental flair, presenting her as a kind of midpoint between Arthur Russell’s renaissance man approach to songwriting and Robert Ashley’s fascination with the possibilities of the human voice. A truly effervescent affair.
FFO: Sexual Harassment, Peter Gordon, The Pool, Dinosaur L, Robert Ashley
