Saturday 30 July 2011

The Real Tuesday Weld - The Last Werewolf


The Real Tuesday Weld and their inimitable antique-pop - much like the subject matter of their new album, The Last Werewolf - are born of strange nighttime visitations.

One foggy London morning, the visual artist Steven Coates woke from a dream in which he was visited by the specter 1930’s dandy jazz vocalist Al Bowlly. Shortly thereafter, deep in the throes of eye-fluttering sleep, Coates was confronted by film star-turned-cult figure Tuesday Weld. Well-versed in Jung’s theory that dream apparitions represent an aspect of the unrealized self, our hero stopped painting and decided to form a band that makes electronically altered dance music steeped in the jazz traditions of Cole Porter and Django Reinhardt. And so, according to legend, began the Real Tuesday Weld.


Fittingly, TRTW’s newest album The Last Werewolf (released 7/12, Six Degrees Records), stands as a companion album – officially the Soundtrack -- to the new Glen Duncan novel of the same name. Because what is the werewolf if not the ultimate nightmarish representation of our deviant selves, the hideous Mr. Hyde to our law-abiding Dr. Jekyll? Of his newest album, Coates says, “I intended the album to work as...an independent piece in itself,” but quickly points out that “if you read the book it would take on other layers.” The collection plays like an old radio drama, replete with snippets of dialogue from the novel interspersed between songs, to help drive forward the narrative arc. From the Kraftwerk-inspired “Time of the Month,” to the insidiously catchy piece of steampunk Britpop “Tear Us Apart” the nineteen songs on this album weave together an unusual blend of sounds (from Tin Pan Alley to post-modern glitchy beats) and collaborators, including Piney Gir, on “Me and Mr. Wolf,” and Pinkie Maclure on “Save Me.” Try a sample bite with this MP3 of “Me and Mr Wolf.”

With numerous critically acclaimed art projects and albums to their name, TRTW are no strangers to draping their progressively nostalgic tunes over inventive concepts. In 2003, TRTW collaborated with Duncan on the soundtrack to his viciously funny novel, I, Lucifer. Meanwhile, with the the new novel having already been optioned for the big screen by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, American Gangster), and the band’s track “I Love the Rain” re-entering the charts due to a fortuitous placement in a recent Chevrolet ad campaign, it’s no stretch of the imagination to assume that TRTW will soon become a household name.

The Last Werewolf is now available at Amazon and iTunes.



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