ROSS BLAKE RELEASES ‘NIGHT SONG’
Released November 24th via Horsearm Records
Enter the surreal world of UK Polymath Ross Blake. The London based musician has dropped the latest single from his forthcoming album – the eerie, dreamlike ‘Night Song’
Fearlessly charting a journey into a world of mystery, Ross Blake's delirious original soundtrack to Pretty en Rose conjures up the glamorous milieu of its parent film, yet goes beyond to inhabit its own peculiar and poetic realm of the imagination.
Pretty en Rose was directed by underground auteur Angélique Bosio, and documents the career of cult Parisian fashion icon Fifi Chachnil. Blake and Bosio have been acquainted for some time following Blake’s discovery of her earlier film Lilk Your Idols, which documented ‘The Cinema of Transgression’ in 80’s-90’s New York. Having then been similarly impressed by Blake's theatrical soundtracks and the experimental output of his former bands Buttonhead and Poino, she summarily enlisted him to provide a simpatico score to her film; a documentary that transcends Fifi Chachnil's diva persona, and looks behind the exotic veil of her idealised Parisian glamour-puss image to investigate the personality within.
Taking French musical themes and interweaving them with a plethora of influences ranging from Ennio Morricone to Angelo Badalementi, and Joe Meek to Angela Morley's Watership Down soundtrack, Blake creates a finely-wrought tapestry that exists on a plateau beyond kitsch and exotica, drifting effortlessly through realms of fantasy and hallucination. Nonetheless, the strains of luminaries such as Broadcast, The Advisory Circle and Basil Kirchin might make fitting comparisons for the elegant arrangements and golden filigree herein.
A modern-day polymath, Ross Blake is given to extend his work in a variety of directions, incorporating and reconciling visual art and music. He has recently provided his customary skewed film-magic for a variety of musical artists and has already created a selection of videos to exist in tandem with this soundtrack release, exploring a trademark visual language that merges Lego vomit, double-taking dogs and Crush Fetish content amongst many other unusual delights. Furthermore, an eclectic group of notable visual artists have been commissioned to provide accompanying music videos for a selection of tracks, not to mention the coup de grâce album cover photograph of Fifi Chachnil provided by none other than superstar art-duo Pierre et Gilles.
Yet for now, feast on this sonically elegant and seductive blend of the melodically rich, atmospherically uncanny, and magically haunting work that is pure Ross Blake. Above and beyond the cinematic themes of beauty and artifice its parent film explores, he has created an album that is an overwhelming and abundant audial banquet as a peerless chronicle of the chic.
1. Ages
2. Karen Black 04:49
3. Silk Trout
4. Golden Spherics
5. Night Song
6. Old Water
7. House of Miracles 03:03
8. New Water
All music composed and produced by Ross Blake
All music recorded by Ross Blake and Gaverick de Vis
All music mixed and mastered by Prizum - www.prizum.uk
Ross Blake: Backing Vocals (1), Bass (1, 4, 6), Clarinet (7), Guitar (1, 6, 8), Organ (2, 4, 6), Piano (3–7), Programming ( 1–2), Synths ( 1–4, 6–8), Taisho Koto (1, 3), Ukulele (5), Vibraphone (4, 8). Daniel John Boyle: Percussion (3). Kelly Everett: Backing Vocals (3). Eloise Goulder: Harp ( 1, 5), Viola (3–5), Violin (3–5). Karen Gwyer: Guest Vocals (2). Lillias Kinsman-Blake: Flute (3, 4, 7). Valentina Magaletti: Percussion (3). Dearbhla Minogue: Vocals (1, 8). Luca Nasciuti: Cello (3, 4). Dwight Scruntz: Drums and Percussion (4–6). Natalie Sharp: Vocals (1, 7). Tobias Warwick Jones: Guitar (3)
