Long time Outsideleft favourites The Real Tuesday Weld have begun saying their goodbyes with the first of a triple tap of farewell releases. We dug the first single from the album in our round-table round-up a few weeks ago and now we’ve been digging the whole of Blood. It’s a collection of dark stories for dark days. Stephen Coates founded the group back in 2001 and over the ensuing years has honed their idiosyncratic “antique beats” until they sound like nobody else. You’re going to miss them when they’ve gone. We asked Stephen to talk us through the new album. Take it away Mr Coates...
BLOOD is the first of our final swansong trilogy: ‘Bone, Dreams, Blood’. It is a jazz noir themed set with 10 tales of romantic revenge, haunted heartbreak and urban psychodrama (and a nod to our circus swing past).
Track 1: Blood Knuckled and Dusted
French artist Oriana Curls alternately laments and vilifies an erstwhile lover whose star has fallen low yet continues to claim his genius.
Track 2: Too Much Too Soon
Barry Adamson's Oedipus Schmoedipus album was an early inspiration for what a record could be and it remains a personal perennial influence This is a kind of tribute to Barry's genius.
Track 3: Poker Face
I like Lady Gaga and I loved this song when it came out. Terrific tune, mysterious mood, clever lyrics and a dream like image of greed, gambling and casino cupidity.
Track4: Silicone
GG McEwan features on this kitchen sink drama of love set amongst the remaining ruins and disappearing dystopian decline of South London. I think it's a shame what the what they’re doing to Elephant and Castle - making it all nice and safe and that.
Track 5: What Happens Next?
I always wanted to be Serge Gainsbourg. It’s too late now but here he is imagined in a cold war cafe scene - or maybe in a club in one of the great trashy films by Jacques Poitrenaud he soundtracked.
Track 6: Promises Promises
I thought of this as a riposte to the video for Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. Sephine Llo, who is singing, would be like Bette Davis in The Letter surrounded by a band of identikit Errol Flynn types in dinner jackets who she witheringly dismisses. This is not a love song.
Track 7: The Floating Man
Does what it says on the tin - I had a dream I left my old flat in Clerkenwell and there was a man in a tuxedo hanging in the sky above Rosebery Avenue. Nobody seemed to notice or care why he was there - until he crashed to the ground. Then the sirens started.
Track 8: Torched Song
A few years back I got a call on Christmas Eve from Los Angeles:
"Can you write a song about a heroin addicted 40s club jazz singer who may be a pyromaniac?” “
"Sure thing I will go right to it”.
GG McEwan burns on this song originally scored for the role-playing game LA Noire.
Track 9: Skeletons in Waiting
I have spent a lot of time in Russia in the last few years. There’s something wonderfully deep and dark about Russian gypsy tango and waltzes seasoned with jokes about death. It's difficult not to be moved by them.
Track 10: Killers
In dreams we are all dying aren’t we?
Blood red vinyl
Essential Info:
THE REAL TUESDAY WELD - BLOOD (ANTIQUE BEAT)
Released May 7th 2021 - Limited edition Vinyl / Download.
Further information - https://therealtuesdayweld.com/
Photo credit: Paul Heartfield
