(Six Degrees/Fuse Music)

Tin Pan Alley goes 21^st century

Stephen Coates (aka The Real Tuesday Weld) blends Tin Pan Alley-styled cabaret pop, late night jazz and electronica on his latest sweeping, conceptual work The London Book Of The Dead. His music was apparently inspired by a combination of esoteric factors – a dream about actress Tuesday Weld and British 1930s crooner Al Bowlly, and the vintage songs he heard crackling through the radio in his childhood home. As a result, there is something slightly disembodied about his music, as Coates’ delivers cynical Cole Porter twists in the jaunty Kix (“I don’t get my kicks out of you”) and other lovelorn observations throughout the record in a soft, often gentle voice. Meanwhile, Eastern-ragtime arrangements sidle up to laptops in the brilliantly noirish Ruth, Roses And Revolvers. The album occasionally comes too close to the ‘fading in/out’ of the static-drenched radios of his youth, as songs seem to float in and out of the consciousness instead of beginning and holding your attention to the end. That said, The London Book Of The Dead effectively brings urbanised lost souls, spectral soundscapes, technology and nostalgia into one record and for that, it should be applauded.

***½

MATT THROWER

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