I Am a Photograph

by Michael Freedberg Lear, previously known as a Roxy Music album cover model and a protégé of Salvador Dali, appears here as a cabaret countess. She enunciates sexually naughty suggestions in a smoke-and-velvet rasp. Her best subversions hit a dancer's most salacious fantasies dead on. Most of these songs support their studied lewdness with absurdly different music, creating tangible friction (e.g., "Alligator" -- funk bottom, frothy violins on top) that makes Lear's tape-loop voice feel even naughtier. All of Lear's tempos assault disco norms, either as sleaze or ultra-fast high-energy. An album not to be missed.