Revulva is an openly seductive, self-titled debut album for a loose-but-tight Wellington ensemble headed by Phoebe Johnson.
Phoebe Pascale Scaletti Johnson wanted to lead a Funk and Soul, Jazz and Pop with horns outfit, fronted by women’s anima spirit.
She is a School of Music graduate, where she specialised in Jazz bass. Her singing is seductive, salacious and playfully sexy, but not in the voracious she-wolf manner of a Big Mama Thornton, or the original style of Tina Turner.
Her voice has a closer affinity to Minnie Ripperton, a thrush with a wide range but more in the upper register. Her huge hit Loving You and we are closer to bracketing the sound of Johnson.
With her middle names, there is a sense she may morph into a Lady. Stefani Angelina Germanotta reinvented herself as Lady Gaga.
Revulva’s current ensemble which played on this album include Lily Rose Shaw (saxophone), Toby Leman (saxophone), Hector McLachlan (keyboards), Kaito Walley, Lennox Grootjans, Mysty Cooke, Zane Hawkins (guitar).
There are horns and drums in there. The ensemble players generate a busy popcorn of styles without cluttering the mix.
Produced by Doctor Lee Prebble Surgery Studio, and the band, in Wellington
The hard Disco birthed from R’n’B sound of Chic (Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers) features on opening tracks So Fine and Boing Flip. Essentially the bass lines on this and several others take care of the visceral bounce of hips and backbone. The head will follow.
Sting like butterfly/ Float like a bee on the latter song, which has a horn intro like Kool and the Gang’s singles from the early Seventies.
Beep Beep is female braggadocio, but it carries some hostility. Foot at the pedal, goodbye to hospitality/ Hello hostility.
Soul Jazz, sexy vocals and gets you on the dance floor. Baby you can drive MY car!
I’m thinking the band’s name is a Beatles reference. A clever pun with sexual references in similar fashion to the Fab Four of ages ago.
To remove all doubt about decorum, there is Bush Bash. Starts with a female orgasm which could be faked as it ends in smile.
More pornographic than Sylvia (Robinson) and Pillow Talk. Number one in America in the early Seventies, and I got sick of it quickly as a thirteen-year-old. Quite tame compared to Revulva today.
Incidentally, Robinson went on to become one of the most important managers and producers of Hip-Hop and Rap.
What’s a little wet dream without the wet? / In the bush, in the car, don’t care where we started. Sax on the bridge is nice, too.
Dylan would not go there (closest he got was Lay Lady Lay), but he may be a lyrical inspiration for This Town. Cinematic narrative in scope, a Wild West tale, as in Bogans. Love thy neighbour/ And thy neighbour’s neighbour is the wordplay which resonates with his current style.
Compromise is seductive Pop Jazz. The clearest Ripperton-styled vocal on the album. There are strings present. Why should I love you/ If I couldn’t love myself. A clever kiss-off.
Hot Jam starts as a Northern Soul floor-filler, with the seductive voice slowly wrapping around it.
Heroin Chic is slower in tempo, as the horns take centre stage. Desperate times/ Guilty pleasures/ Lying like an addict. The singer may roll up her sleeves and get exactly what she wants, but the backing voices are beautiful and comforting.
Great horns help mitigate Landlord, which frankly is a tirade. The music cuts it but the lyrics are overly sociopolitical. How is my landlord contributing to society? The big fat moneysucker is on the end of a spoken tongue-lashing and being told to fix the floorboards, motherfucker!
Nigel is the closing song, and the singing on this would be an ideal Dusty Springfield cover. Spare and minimalist, the tale of Nigel No-Mates is an homage to a lonely gannet who could only befriend concrete statues of birds.
A lament but it has a peaceful acceptance to it. Makes it a Soul song.
Revulva, and the band’s debut album is sexy and playful, lots of hooks and some nicely placed barbs.
Rev. Orange Peel