Feature Image Credit: Aurelia
Beautiful and Damned: Jessica Morale Confesses
On Sex, Sin, and Salvation in ‘Celestial Bodies’
It’s early afternoon, but the mood feels closer to a quiet cathedral. Somewhere between confession and prayer, Jessica Morale is searching for something sacred inside the labyrinth, the holy matrimony of being alive. “The things that make us feel celestial aren’t always beautiful,” Jessica Morale tells All Music Magazine. “Sometimes they’re destructive.” The idea behind Celestial Bodies, a gothic, sensual, cinematic EP, is the contradiction between the things that create us as humans: the sacred and dramatic forces that create both love and devotion, desire and sexuality, euphoria and melancholy, and vice versa. The abstract boundary we all walk between being uplifted and self-destructive. Her project follows her previous phase of evolution called Phases (which she described as “all about transition.” If that record captured the instability of becoming someone new, Celestial Bodies feels like an attempt to find something divine within the chaos.
The perilous gift of free will, in many ways, has always been part of Morale’s personal mythology. A flying sparrow appears tattooed on her upper left thigh. Its extended wings suggest that it is breaking free from its cage. Although this is a medium-sized tattoo, it represents a significant belief for her, as well as serves as a reminder to herself that no matter the situation at hand ( whether or not it works out), there is another level to reach above it. A flame tangled in her skin, a God amongst men. In the ancient image of the ouroboros serpent that once lured humanity’s curiosity into coming undone and whole in the same breath, devouring its own tail in the pursuit of understanding, Morale’s journey with Celestial Bodies feels no less cyclical; an ongoing dance between destruction and rebirth.
Image Credit: Aurelia
Celestial Bodies, lush, fevered, and alive with ecstatic ambiguity like her spirit rising and falling into climax with every trembling note, a concept record that Morale herself describes as a religious-themed imagery-laden EP which “delves into sacred and profane forces that makes us feel most divine. It’s about what makes us feel the most high.” A Luciferian journey toward forbidden illumination, a falling from grace and discovering that “Heaven can be all around us,” where sex brushes up against spirituality, longing against illicit self-sabotage; a place where saints and profane sinners share the same heartbeat.
That tension is perhaps nowhere more apparent than on “Star,” which Morale calls “a love letter to my younger self” and her most vulnerable track. The song reads like a quiet act of grace that is directed towards the girl she used to know who is full of unreasoned fear, past hurts, and a long journey to know herself. Much like “Dancing with the Devil,” battling your own inner demons explores the idea of self-sabotage taking control and reframing temptation as being something that you create rather than being forced upon you. “In the context of the song, I am the devil,” she said. “I was afraid of getting hurt again.” And as spoken by Morale, the devil may not be the monster that lives in the dark, rather it is our basic instinct to reject love before it has a chance to hurt us.
The brooding EP Celestial Bodies gothic aesthetic extends its poison hand beyond lyrics into visual storytelling. The cover art pays homage to Alexandre Cabanel’s 1847 painting The Fallen Angel, a portrait of beauty, pride, and exile. Morale sees herself in the painting’s titular figure: “In the concept of the song “Dancing with the Devil,”I felt damaged due to past relationships. I saw myself as the fallen angel, and this person as something ‘too good’ for me.” The painting’s mixture of pride, pain, and quiet defiance mirrors the emotional terrain of Celestial Bodies itself. Like Cabanel’s fallen figure, Morale’s pain-pocked pop record lingers between temptation and redemption, where desire and self-sabotage metamorphose into one another.
On “Altar,” young, hot, and dangerous, with a black lace veil and rosary in her mouth, teen-pop slayer Jessica Morale pushes sacred imagery into provocative territory, her face lost in rapture, caught up in the divine devotion and carnal ecstasy. Like the shifting personas of a pop chameleon, she has almost as many outfits as the devil has many names. For as ferociously stylish and incandescent as she remains unrepented in her signature triple layered chain, punk padlock necklace and a dominatrix-style waist belt that is laced in leather and mesh, to structure with boning that sculps her torso like dark armor.
Image Credit: Aurelia
After the uncertainty she faced in the last few years, she deserves to be seen for who she is. And with this haunting and intimate new EP, Celestial Bodies, as she transforms her bedroom into a sanctuary of sacred intimacy: “submitting to desire with someone” Morale says, “and empowerment through owning your feminine sexual energy.” It’s a provocative image. Sex as worship, and desire as power, but it captures the strange spiritual gravity that runs through Celestial Bodies from the start to its ending. In the end, Celestial Bodies isn’t really about angels or devils, saints or sinners. It’s about the human instinct to reach for something holy in the middle of a fallen world caught in a six, threescore and six, slick scheme of a sick fix, a cursed crucifix. At some point, either in a statement of confession and revelation, she seems to understand the quiet truth at the center of it all: the celestial thing she was searching for was never in heaven, or in someone else’s arms. It was inside her all along, a quiet fire just waiting to be named.
Follow Jessica Morale Online:
Anthony Mclaude, the enigmatic figure known as Rock & Roll’s Best Kept Secret, delves into the world of music journalism with a raw and unapologetic pen. From established icons to up-and-coming talents, Mclaude fearlessly reviews and reveals the diverse sounds that shape our musical landscape.
Raised in a Christian household by a single mother and grandmother in the 1990s, Mclaude’s journey into the world of rock ‘n’ roll began at a young age. The soulful melodies of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, mixed with the pop sensibilities of Madonna and Alanis Morissette, created a soundtrack that would influence his future path.
A pivotal moment came in 7th grade when Mclaude’s storytelling prowess caught the attention of his teacher, Mrs. DeFeo. Her words of encouragement ignited a fire within him, propelling him towards a future in writing. Fast forward fifteen years, and Mclaude found himself studying journalism at Cumberland County College, honing his skills as a reporter for The Voice.
His dedication and passion for community journalism led him to a position at The People’s Press of Millville, where he made his mark with insightful articles and press releases. Collaborations with publications like Eclectic Shades, Rock At Night, and New Noise Magazine further solidified Mclaude’s reputation as a rising star in the world of music journalism.
With each byline, Mclaude continues to push the boundaries of his craft, capturing the essence of artists and their music with a unique perspective that sets him apart in the industry. As Rock & Roll’s Best Kept Secret, his journey is just beginning, with a future as bright and promising as the music he so passionately writes about.