Love, lust and a little rebellion underpin Abbe May's impressive new album, writes BERNARD ZUEL.
Abbe May finally got some good news about her mother recently. ''I have to say that I was really pleased that my mother hated my album cover,'' she says gleefully of the image on the front of her third album, Design Desire.
''I couldn't think of anything better, because it wasn't something she was able to send happily to Ireland to relatives, because I've got my nipples on the front and there are cuts on my arms and there's a giant cow skull on my head.''
The West Australian singer-songwriter, a powerful presence behind a microphone and guitar, really likes and admires her mother and the feeling is mutual. And that's the problem.
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Her mother, a 61-year-old former English teacher, drives around town playing her daughter's hard-edged songs of desire and demand, loudly and proudly. Nothing has fazed her before about her daughter's recordings or performances, not the strong sexual overtones, nor the hell and damnation tempted.
''To rebel against her has been quite a chore and I'm quite angry with her about that,'' May jokes. ''So when that [news of the disapproval] came through, I thought, 'Yes! Something finally got through'.''
Her mother, however, wasn't without cause as the cover image is deliberately confronting on a number of levels. There's the contrast of the long, parched bovine skull over her head in an enigmatic pose (is she taking it off or putting it on; hiding or revealing?) and her partially naked body.
''For me, it is a challenging cover. It's hard for me to look at because it's my own breasts and my torso and it's a disturbing image,'' says May, who works closely with feminist philosopher and photographer Toni Wilkinson on all her imagery.
It wasn't until her mother mentioned it that she even noticed the bruised look (actually a trick of the light) but she makes it clear that everything about that cover is deliberate, directly reflecting the complex music inside.
''I wanted to include animalistic elements to the record's artwork because a lot of the songs are about the animalistic side of desire,'' says 28-year-old May, whose career began in the blues but these days stretches across a wide expanse of rock.
''The mask is in some ways a more revealing face because the wearer chooses the mask and that extends to the choice of bra I'm wearing, which is almost like a cage with bars on it. A caged animal, but also an animal that's revealing itself.''
Yes, the cuts could have been Photoshopped out but, for May, there is an element of pain that goes along with desire.
''I'm just like everybody else, there are parts of me that are restrained and there are parts of me that are wild and it's a balance between those things,'' she says. ''Within each of us is a mad woman standing in the back of the garden with a skull over her face and the person who is aware that sometimes there needs to be an element of control.''
As with her songs, which mix earthy blues, space rock and occasionally manipulated vocals that render her voice quiet and mysterious (''I'd howled and moaned myself to death already,'' she chuckles), there is much more complexity to the way May handles sexuality than is the case in most of what passes for sex in popular culture.
Whereas the most famous ''empowered'' female pop and film stars usually portray overt sexuality as control - while mostly playing into male-centred tropes of availability and submissiveness - May mixes vulnerability and openness in a way that is all about strength.
''It's a display of sexuality for someone else, not an experience of sexuality for yourself,'' May says of the likes of one of her pet hates, Katy ''I Kissed a Girl'' Perry (''I'd like to slap the girl and like it,'' she snorts).
''It is very limiting and unrealistic. I was a big fan of Madonna but she is probably the beginning point of the sexualised stuff but she did it really well and did it for adults, not for tweens.''
Sexuality is often funny for May - she released a song a few years ago featuring every euphemism for oral sex she'd collected over the years - but not a disposable topic.
Declaring herself reluctant to use the term bisexual ''because it's overused and a little bit cheapened by people like Katy Perry'', May prefers to say ''I am very open to anyone that I thought was interesting regardless of their gender.''
While she ''had an understanding of sexuality from a young age'' with parents who always believed that sexual identity was more fluid than social dictates prescribed, May grew up a Catholic, aware of ''an element of uncertainty about whether or not you can accept yourself''.
''I think that's why I get so passionate about the representation of sexuality, because I think it's important for young people, particularly those who are on the edge, because they feel they might be what some people call abnormal,'' she says.
''I am not interested particularly in displaying myself sexually to please other women or men. I write about love and lust and I try to write about that in as universal a way as possible because I feel it in a universal way.''
Abbe May plays the Annandale Hotel on Thursday. Design Desire is out now.
Source : http://www.smh.com.au/
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