CONFESSIONS OF A DIVA: TOM RASMUSSEN TALKS MADONNA

29-06-26

Rebel Hearts! Mother is BACK and we’re celebrating with an All Day Post-Pride listening sesh, deep down at The Mothership! Tom Rasmussen returns with NIGHT OF A THOUSAND MADONNAS– celebrating the launch of Confessions Of A Dancefloor 2. With a fierce lineup and stellar secret guests, plus absolutely all proceeds going to Positive East – are you gonna come and confess?

Ahead of this Sunday, we caught up with Tom for a full Madonna grilling…

What is your earliest memory of Madonna? 

It was actually watching Evita with my grandma in 1996, that’s my first conscious memory maybe… ever? I was so deeply obsessed, I watched the video tape until it broke. But that grief quickly metamorphosed into Ray of Light. I was nine, but I knew then the healing power of motherhood. My friend Dani says some gays are mothers and some are children, and while I have tried to let the play of my inner child in, but I am mother. And I was baptised as such in the windy icy climes of that record. I became mother at nine. 

Which era Madonna would you have liked to have been best friends with? 

All of them except MDNA Madonna. We would have been feuding then. But I think we would have really fucked with each other in the Girlie Show era. Two orgiastic queens, one dream? And of course Ray of Light through to confessions? I would have been an incredible cheerleader to her during American Life — a masterpiece of socio-pop-politics, the likes of which we may never ever see again. I will be buried with a copy of that CD. 

Which Madonna song do you wish you wrote and why? 

Nothing Really Matters. Those lyrics are what pop should be about: incredible life lessons, incredibly simple melodies, buddhist teachings, cyclical love. We are the love we give. It makes me tear up even thinking about it. ?It’s the best pop song ever made. I won’t be taking questions on that. 

Tell us about your favourite Madonna album?…

This is a fools question! This changes near hourly. Right now it’s all the album tracks off Music. That fucking Mirwais production? It is just is so mad to think this is the biggest pop artist in history and these are the songs she made? It’s truly visionary genre pushing. For its lesson in patience and love, and for the song Sky Fits Heaven, Ray of Light. American Life – are you kidding me? Erotica? Bedtime Stories? Like a Prayer? Like a Virgin? I’m in the mood to fight. MDNA wasn’t for me but that was the year I was trying to become a punk, although Girl Gone Wild plays and it’s immediately poppers o’clock. I just can’t fault her work. I literally can’t. Vision, politics, fight, ambition, love? 

What is your naughtiest confession from the dance floor? 

Eight words: Eiffel Tower Panorama Bar m kitty m purr

Give us three Madonna deep cuts 

I Don’t Search I Find — Madame X 

Nobody Knows Me — Remixed and Revisited

Hanky Panky — I’m Breathless 

…And your top three Madonna ‘looks’ pls? 

Her depressed pop star Prada look in Substitute for Love video. The leotard, like let’s not fuck about? And her looks in the Beast Within Steven Klein Tour Opener for the Reinvention tour, from X-Static Process. 

Madonna asks you to duet with her on a covers album. What song are you singing with her? Who is producing it? Talk us through the video treatment.

Shut up? If this happened I wouldn’t make it to the studio cos I would die. Producing is Orbit and Price, maybe send the songs to Timbaland if he’ll get off his AI garbage. And Mirwais exec-ing. Meisel on visuals. I’d also want Goldfrapp involved, and some friends here like Midland, Romy, James Greenwood. We are buddhists and mothers but we are also dancing, and it’s in New York and China. And we are talking about war, and politics. But crucially there’s no appropriation (bless her, she hath been there). The tracklist? 

1. Die Another Day 

2. Nothing Really Matters 

3. X-Static Process, feat. Anohni

4. Impressive Instant 

5. Forbidden Love (Confessions) 

6. Human Nature 

7. Don’t Cry For Me Argentina Dance Edit feat. Janet Jackson 

8. Act of Contrition feat. Pope Leo and Kate Moss

9. Rain

10. Deeper and Deeper (12” version) 

11. Lucky Star

12. Mer Girl, with the London Philharmonic (this one’s for William Orbit <3) 

OMG tell us about your forthcoming album?

Well I was listening to a lot of Music and a lot of Mirwais when making it… it’s electro. Modular, analog. Furious fuck pop about violence and rights with big poppy hooks. Like Fischerspooner and Goldfrapp’s baby, with my lyrical sensibility: my desperation for a better world. I’m really fucking tired of asking! I’m demanding! This album is my most cunty (and I do not use that word freely); it is my most furious; my most sexual and my most loving. It is all about love – falling in it, letting myself feel it, not being afraid of it, not being afraid of my homosexual love even when so many others are. The first lyric I wrote for this record was ‘you are not a machine; the last lyric I wrote was ‘to separate my mind from my heart you’ll have to cut my head off.’

What can we expect on July 5th? 

MADONNATHON! ALL DAY ALL NIGHT ENDLESS CONFESSIONS! A SOY LATTE, A DOUBLE SHATTE!!! 

So… Can we get together? Are you ready to bring your love? Cos we know where the bodies are buried xxx

Hear Confessions Of A Dancefloor on repeat from 5PM til late, this Sunday 5th July! See you this Sunday prim and proper, post pride!!!!!

– DSS x