Real Tuesday Weld,The - Blood (Sealed) (LP)

After two decades on the fringe, cult London troubadours The Real Tuesday Weld are calling time with a series of swan song releases. The first: "BLOOD" gathers their collaborators for a farewell set of 'ten songs for noir films'. Haunted waltzes, piano interludes and cinematic electronica provide the backdrop for an ensemble of barflies, torch singers and femme fatales to perform songs that channel influences including Serge Gainsbourg, Tom Waits, Julie London, Barry Adamson and Polly Harvey. Film references are to the fore, recalling the band's soundtracks for blockbuster game LA Noire and soundtrack to surrealist classic Dreams That Money Can Buy - along with perennial inspirations Angel Heart, Twin Peaks and Down by Law. Written over recent years between various film scores and collaborations, the songs beguile with stories of romantic revenge, heartbreak, anima dreams and urban psychodramas - with a nod (via a deranged cover version of Poker Face) to the band's circus swing past. "I want to bring it to an end, kill it off with a kiss and a final flourish" says singer and producer Stephen Coates .."That's for all sorts of reasons: romantic, psychological, astrological. I've loved The Real Tuesday Weld (and all those who have helped and supported us) too dearly to leave it to chance or to just let it fizzle out like a spent firework. My own ambiguities have been there since the beginning in naming the band after the Hollywood actress I dreamt of. This album expresses them further with a suite of songs written for powerful women and scenarios intended to conjure up noir narratives in the listener. Featured vocalists: Oriana Curls, GG McEwen, Sephine Llo. BLOOD is the first of the final Swan Song trilogy BONE, DREAMS, BLOOD. Stephen Coates formed The Real Tuesday Weld in 2001 pioneering a style he dubbed 'Antique Beat', a combination of old jazz sounds and electronics that was to influence the emerging electro-swing scene. Reluctant scene-joiners themselves, the band run their own label, working with...