Welder World Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Album’

Album Description
The Real Tuesday Weld, a.k.a. British singer-songwriter and audio provocateur Stephen Coates has charmed critics and audiences alike by wedding the suggestive hiss of vintage vinyl and ancient radio transmissions to the latest samples, loops and glitchy beats, creating a signature sound he calls “antique beat”. London Book of the Dead may be a startlingly morose title, and it’s true that the album’s lyrical concerns drift dreamily between such weighty topics as death, religious faith, honesty, drugs, and disease. But even when the going gets dark and introspective, there’s an element of whimsy that is never far from the surface. “Last Words” is possibly the most accessible track. This catchy “electro-pop” tune is now being used extensively in the highly anticipated film Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

London Book of the Dead

Album Description
The Real Tuesday Weld, a.k.a. British singer-songwriter and audio provocateur Stephen Coates has charmed critics and audiences alike by wedding the suggestive hiss of vintage vinyl and ancient radio transmissions to the latest samples, loops and glitchy beats, creating a signature sound he calls “antique beat”. London Book of the Dead may be a startlingly morose title, and it’s true that the album’s lyrical concerns drift dreamily between such weighty topics as death, religious faith, honesty, drugs, and disease. But even when the going gets dark and introspective, there’s an element of whimsy that is never far from the surface. “Last Words” is possibly the most accessible track. This catchy “electro-pop” tune is now being used extensively in the highly anticipated film Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

London Book of the Dead

Album Description
The Real Tuesday Weld, a.k.a. British singer-songwriter and audio provocateur Stephen Coates has charmed critics and audiences alike by wedding the suggestive hiss of vintage vinyl and ancient radio transmissions to the latest samples, loops and glitchy beats, creating a signature sound he calls “antique beat”. London Book of the Dead may be a startlingly morose title, and it’s true that the album’s lyrical concerns drift dreamily between such weighty topics as death, religious faith, honesty, drugs, and disease. But even when the going gets dark and introspective, there’s an element of whimsy that is never far from the surface. “Last Words” is possibly the most accessible track. This catchy “electro-pop” tune is now being used extensively in the highly anticipated film Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

London Book of the Dead

Album Description
The Real Tuesday Weld, a.k.a. British singer-songwriter and audio provocateur Stephen Coates has charmed critics and audiences alike by wedding the suggestive hiss of vintage vinyl and ancient radio transmissions to the latest samples, loops and glitchy beats, creating a signature sound he calls “antique beat”. London Book of the Dead may be a startlingly morose title, and it’s true that the album’s lyrical concerns drift dreamily between such weighty topics as death, religious faith, honesty, drugs, and disease. But even when the going gets dark and introspective, there’s an element of whimsy that is never far from the surface. “Last Words” is possibly the most accessible track. This catchy “electro-pop” tune is now being used extensively in the highly anticipated film Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

London Book of the Dead

Album Description
This modern-day electronic cabaret singer-songwriter, whose given name is Stephen Coates, has crafted a unique new sound, informed by Al Bowlly, Serge Gainsbourg, Ennio Morricone as well as modern electronica. I, Lucifer is the imaginary soundtrack to the best selling novel of the same name by Glen Duncan, about the devil returning to earth for a second shot at repentance and mortality. The enhanced CD features the Sundance Online Film Festival award winning animated video for “Bathtime In Clerkenwell.”

In the U.K. where the first album track has been released on 10″ vinyl, it has become an unexpected dance floor hit, with people like Coldcut, Groove Armada and Fatboy Slim singing its praisesAmazon.com
Contemporary pop music often deals with its burgeoning past by pretending to ignore it, all the while frantically picking over the debris to cynically reinvent the wheel. But the U.K.’s The Real Tuesday Weld (a.k.a. singer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Stephen Coates) triumphs here by boldly synthesizing a context of intimate ’20s and ’30s cabaret jazz, then deftly informing it with subtle touches of modern electronica. That it remains much closer in spirit to the former than the latter makes it a compelling, consistently satisfying listen. Taking the form of a mock soundtrack to novelist Glen Duncan’s amusingly warm tale of the devil returning to earth for an ill-advised comeback, Coates’ cabaret electronique draws on influences as diverse as Django Reinhardt, Serge Gainsbourg, Tom Waits, and Al Bowlly (Coates claims the ’30s London crooner inspired him in a dream), TRTW spins breathy, endlessly moody tales of bittersweet romance, all of it informed by a dry, graceful wit. The dizzy, French tongue-tripper “Bathtime in Clerkenwell” quickly became an unlikely Euro club hit; guest performers include the Tiger Lillies’ Martyn Jacques (“Someday (Never)”), Pinkie McClure (the cinematic “One More Chance”), and David Guez (“La Bete et La Bete”‘s Gallic throwback folk-pop). A lot of unfocused musical ambition gets passed off as cutting-edge post-modernism, but the inviting, time-warped conceit Coates/TRTW have concocted here challenges the very notion of such constraining labels. –Jerry McCulley

I Lucifer