I was in New Orleans for the past couple of weeks and while I was there I visited Cypress Grove and St. Louis Cemeteries and shot some video and film footage. I combined that footage with some clips from some older films, including Alucarda, Tilly Losch and The Dance Of Her Hands, Danse Serpentine and vintage burlesque to create a short film. It’s raw and spontaneous and owes a bit of a debt to film makers I admire like Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage. Of course, they are masters and I am not.
The soundtrack is composed of three songs from my album Tantric Machine (release date: May 2012). The album will be a two-disc affair containing 24 songs and some videos. The recording sessions were produced by Hugh Pool and involved the use of old microphones, synthesizers, rhythm machines and effects boxes. I wanted the project to sound like it was recorded with instruments that had turn to rust - something ancient and yet modern.
As I sang some of the tunes, I found my voice going into a place it hadn’t really gone before. My Texas roots emerged and a “country” feel entered the songs. I made no effort to sing like a hillbilly convict. It just happened. I also tapped into my French side. The result is some kind of weird hybrid that sounds like music for a Gallic spaghetti western with some LSD thrown in. None of this was planned. I was taken by surprise and that’s what I love about making things.
Tantric Machine has been a long time coming. Not because of the time spent recording it, but because of my reticence to get back into the music business. Now that the music business is barely a business anymore, I’ve returned to seeing music in the way that I saw it when I started my first punk band in 1976; something that I do out of love.
Songs:
“Already Dead”
“The Night Goes On”
“Strangled By Flowers”
Thanks for indulging a musician who still heeds the voice of the Muse when she comes calling. Or as Jack Spicer called it (and I’m paraphrasing), “the Martian that re-arranges the furniture in your head.”
Contains brief nudity.