Pillow Queen, the production duo of D. Tiffany and Vani-T, continue their
sonic, sensous charting of the dancefloor in their new 3-track
release Calling Me, a collaboration with the vocalist, writer and sex
worker Ruin. Sexual drive has always been in the alchemy of Pillow Queen’s
music, but at the fore is a wider, more encompassing erotics – one of the
spirit and uninhibited body. Such is the force Ruin and the girls incant on
this record.
The opening track, which also gives the release its title, begins with
wide, introspective chords. “Calling Me” is spacious, and takes its time to
build over 10 and a half gorgeous minutes, riding on at 118 BPM. Akin to
some works of Robert Leiner or John Beltran, it’s a track situating
spirituality in the genre of trance via the builds and flows of the music
itself, rather than gimmicky cues of “Eastern” Goa vocals or overblown
psychedelic drama. As always with Pillow Queen, the vocal samples are
pitched and twisted with the greatest care.
By their third release, one can begin to note the duo’s characteristic
gestures, and “Tunnel Vision” is somehow emblematic here: those pitched
vocals, synth loops frayed out from filters, and crisp, bright drum
programming that makes 134 BPM feel like the most natural metronome your
feet and ass could follow. We hear Ruin for the first time two minutes in:
“You cannot tunnel vision me”. She speaks of a “dance without dogma” in
between short choral swells, picking up on the theme of a rewritten divine
that figures into Pillow Queen’s Burn Me Up (2020). The phrase “dance
without dogma” refers to the writings of Gabrielle Roth, a dancer and
author noted for founding the 5Rhythms movement-meditation. Roth’s phrase
“sweat your prayers” has also been held aloft as an ethic of the party
series Radiant Love, where this EP’s final track, “She’s Hot Magic,” was
intended to be performed live by Ruin and D. Tiffany. Again we start
airborne with birdcall and floating chords. Picking up a kick drum after 3
minutes, and a bassline after 5, this is truly some
deep-dancefloor-7AM-body-and-soul-fully-merged shit. Concurrently, we hear
Ruin asking us “Unconscious floor, do you know what good touch is?” and
“Can you trust this sound?” No doubt, we are being called.
