Danielle Dax Biography

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Danielle Dax Biography

Danielle Dax is a singer/songwriter, multi- instrumentalist, producer, artist and interior/garden designer. During her musical career she has been a pioneer and experimentalist whose work has been a strong influence on many who followed her.

Her music incorporates numerous styles including - classical, blues, electronica, indian, rock, African, psychedelic and medieval which blend together to create something utterly unique.

Dax was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex and spent the majority of her early childhood with her grandparents who encouraged her love of art, nature and the occult.

She began performing at the age of three on the Southend Bandstand as an 'orange jellybaby' and later in Benjamin Britten's 'Noyeh's Fludde' at the Royal Albert Hall. She also designed posters and programmes for Opera East and studied classical flute at school.

In 1979 Dax met Karl Blake and painted the artwork for Lemon Kitten's first EP 'Spoonfed and Writhing', and soon joined the band playing flute, tenor sax, keyboards and vocals. Slimmed down to just Blake and herself the band released the highly acclaimed album 'We Buy A Hammer For Daddy' and in 1982 the album 'Those That Bite The Hand That Feeds Them Sooner Or Later Must Meet... The Big Dentist'.

During this period they also released numerous tracks on compilation albums and another EP, 'Cake Beast', and began playing live shows (naked and wearing body paint) supporting the likes of DIvine, Killing Joke and Chelsea.

Dax was also busy designing sleeves for The Bombay Ducks, The Reflections, the League Of Gentlemen and Robert Fripp with whom she also collaborated on the track 'Minor Man' on the album 'Let The Power Fall'.

In 1983 Dax recorded and released her pioneering album 'Pop-Eyes' on which she sings, plays all instruments, writes, arranges and produces all the material herself as well as making the cover artwork which was deemed too disturbing for the packing company to handle.

At this time there were few women working in the music business and Dax cut an unusual and singular figure who soon found herself hailed as a feminist icon.

In 1984 Dax appeared in two films - Neil Jordan's - 'The Company Of Wolves' and 'The Chimera' and was regularly gigging with dancers/performers, body paint, hand-painted sets, costumes and the films of Holly Warburton'.

Over the next few years she released a number of successful EP's which were "Singles Of The Week" in the music press and reached number 1 in the Indie-charts. She also released the albums 'Jesus Egg That Wept' and 'Inky Bloaters', and in Japan 'The Chemical Wedding', 'Up Amongst The Golden Spires' and 'Inky Bloaters'. She supported these records with extensive touring.

1988 saw Dax sign to the Sire/Warner Bros label were she released 'Dark Adapted Eye' and the Stephen Street-produced 'Blast The Human Flower'.

During most of the 90's Dax suffered from a long illness which severely limited her output, however she did manage to set up the 'Biter Of Thorpe' label and release the double album 'Comatose-Non-Reaction' and the 'Timber Tongue' EP as well as working on a side project called P.I.N. (Progressive Intelligence Network).

She was also putting the finishing touches to her astonishing Brixton apartment which featured in a number of magazines including 'The London Evening Standard', 'She' and 'British Alcan' and on TV in 'Des Res' and 'Home Front'. In 1997 the BBC awarded her their Designer-Of-The-Year trophy and in 2000 she graduated with a distinction in garden design at the English Gardening School at the Chelsea Physic Garden.

In 2006 Dax and David Knight put together new backing tracks for a number of spoken word performances in France, Italy and London. She has also added live improvised vocals to shows by The Amal Gamal Ensemble, Faust (Corsica Studio) and the cover artwork and 'Jack Sorrow' vocal to the UnicaZurn album 'Temporal Bends'.

At present Dax continues designing, painting and music making at her home in London .