JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Chus says the Filipino psyche may be summed up with a line from Temptation Island by Joey Gosiengfiao. The beauty queens and hunks are shipwrecked on a desert island with no food or water, only a cassette player and a disco album by Giorgio Moroder. Azenith Briones sums up the situation.

“Walang tubig. Walang pagkain. Magsayaw na lang tayo.” (No water. No food. Let’s just dance.)

There’s a bit of that loony logic in Here Lies Love, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s song cycle about Imelda Marcos and her yaya, Estrella Cumpas.

It’s arrived! Had to yell at someone in DHL, but it was finally delivered last Saturday (Thank you for coming through on a holiday, but you are in the Urgent Delivery business).

The Here Lies Love package contains a 120-page book with the lyrics, David’s notes, and archival photographs of Imelda Marcos,

Two CDs of original dance music featuring vocals by Sharon Jones, Florence Welch from Florence Against The Machine, Cyndi Lauper, Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Kate Pierson of the B-52s, and many others, and a DVD with six music videos.

Here’s a photo of Imelda Marcos with Andy Warhol at an art opening. Of course the most important page in the book is 101, the Acknowledgements, because I’m in it nyahaha (The continuing quest to be an extra).

The official release date for Here Lies Love is April 6. You can order your copy here.

The album is available in multiple formats: MP3, FLAC, Apple Lossless, and CD/DVD.