The Real Tuesday Weld - The London Book of the Dead

Suppose you were to write songs about love, death and time while adding a musical sensibility at once intelligent, witty and fervent. Be as charming as you were vulnerable whilst layering sounds spanning the likes of Al Bowlly, Burt Bacharach, Serge Gainsbourg, Ennio Marricone as well as 30's Jazz, 60's French Pop and Modern Electronic Minimalism. For Stephen Coates (aka: The Real Tuesday Weld), this is a daily routine. His work is his world as well as ours, whether it comes in dreams, sounds, visuals or stories. Inspired by two dreams involving his biggest influences, 30's English music hall singer Al Bowlly and American actress Tuesday Weld, Coates began his journey as suave Englishman and musical genius.

His latest album The London Book of the Dead refers to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text describing the passage of the soul from the end of one life to the beginning of another. For such a morose title, the album is fascinating and nostalgic. Traces of I, Lucifer and The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid emanate while new, timeless sounds whisper and warble. Consider, for example, "Blood Sugar Love" – a tender expression of life and love. Amidst Coates' bubbling vocals are the pattering clicks, trembling oboe and graceful violin submerging pleasant Jon Brion-esque acoustic rhythms. Delicate and serene are not enough to describe the elegance of this love struck opener. "The Decline and Fall of the Clerkenwell Kid" opens with a bluegrass banjo followed by a weeping clarinet conjoined as one halfway through the wowing mini-beats, emotive piano, melodramatic strings and spoken word section of trepidation. Precision is top-notch in this impassioned track. Jazzy "It's a Wonderful Li(f)e gently blares brass to the grim lines "You say it's a wonderful life and you know that's a wonderful lie." "Cloud Cuckooland" pairs rumbling trombone and a blossoming turntable with a running vocal line while the humorous, yet bitter romantic realism of "Kix" plays off of the Cole Porter original "I Get A Kick Out Of You" expressing the opposite sentiment. Joining pulsating beats, flourishing clarinet and fiddle playing (reminiscent of 50's and 60's melodramas) with Coates' suave vocal talent, "Kix" sound swings to the backdrop of anything-but-sweet innards. Nostalgic and lovelorn "Love Sugar Blood" delicately thrives under instrumentals of furrowing strings, vulnerable piano keys, an atmospheric synth pad, and faintly ominous footsteps. Coates' old-fashioned romanticism swells to the core on "I Loved London" a lovelorn swing-beat pop track surged with heartache as Coates proclaims, "I loved London when I was in love with you/ baby that love can never reach an end…because I love London, though I'm not in love with you". Affable yet self-contradictory "I Believe" juxtaposes percussion-driven, gypsy accordion making for an emotionally wayward track as Coates declares, "I believe in monogamy / I believe in lust / I believe in promiscuity / and I believe in trust". The wistful "Song for William" permeates with botanical strings and voice stillness as though to subdue listeners from The London Book of the Dead's bona fide musical conundrums. "Waltz for One" pays semi-homage to Yann Tiersen's breathtaking Amelie film score whereas the witty narrative of "Ruth, Roses and Revolvers" explores the essence of clicking thumps, melodramatic strings and jazzy horns. Together, these and many other stylized blares and snares illustrate the immense sexiness of this smoky jazz number. Electro-pop "Dorothy Parker Blue" reverberates like a sterling chill out track daintily whispering its opiate chimes and Four Tet tainted hyper beats. Browse further, and you'll find the magical "Last Words" a lush, sweet sounding number sure to grab listeners with it's tear-jerking temperament. "Into the Trees" (which appears to be a eulogy to Coates Senior) mourns in beautiful and contemplative ways. The utmost peak of The London Book of the Dead's emotional center resides within "Bringing the Body Back Home" a thoughtful, encouraging waltz. Nestled under patters is the perpetual proposition, "Love is the one thing worth living for." As the credits roll, "Apart" utilizes three part harmony vocals of the Puppini Sisters into an old-time blues twang ditty.

For The Real Tuesday Weld, life experiences are everything. Tempestuous as it is idiosyncratic, The London Book of the Dead relishes these wavering emotional cycles to form an album so humanly relevant that its old-fashioned ballads, beats and blares become that of timeless pop art. What Stephen Coates has rigorously fashioned in his fusion of old and new sounds are the emotional attachments of the past, present and future. And what beautiful creatures those are. Rating (5 out of 5)

Now here is Erika's exclusive interview with Stephen!

antiMusic: What were you doing before you started The Real Tuesday Weld?

Stephen Coates : I was an art student at the Royal College of Art in London

antiMusic: Why is your latest album titled The London Book of the Dead?

Stephen: It's actually a play on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text about the in-between stages of death and the next birth, and I find myself in that in-between state. I also felt as though London was an in-between state (Coates laughs). It just seemed to fit.

antiMusic: What were your goals when making the album?

Stephen:My goal was to capture this particular time. Every time I make a record, there has to be a story. Return of the Clerkenwell Kid was about a love affair. The story on I, Lucifer is the record soundtrack to the novel by the same name. In The London Book of the Dead, it was the journey of a human life.

antiMusic: Why is American film actress, Tuesday Weld such an influence?

Stephen:I particularly loved her role in the film "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve McQueen. I thought she was brainy and beautiful. I found myself thinking about her a lot, so I took it as a sign.

antiMusic: You mention Al Bowlly as a major influence and rightfully so. Your sound is reminiscent of his. What got you into Al Bowlly?

Stephen:I grew up in a peculiar, old fashioned home where my great uncle would play 1930's and 40's jazz. That was the music I listened to as a child. When you're a kid, nothing is old fashioned, it's just music.

antiMusic: What made you want to become a musician?

Stephen:My aunt played instruments and I slowly followed the path in the art. I felt as though I could become a musician, but didn't know how to go about it, but then there was a dream I had and things started happening. I didn't have a big plan to make it in the music industry. It's really a form of intuition - following the string and seeing where it leads. It was all instinct

antiMusic: I heard you once had a dream involving Tuesday Weld and Al Bowlly. Can you describe that dream to me?

Stephen:They were two separate dreams, first was Al Bowlly. He made me want to make music like I'm making now. The next night I had a dream about Tuesday Weld's head, I took it as a sign, and that was what I named my project after. They seemed very significant, I find myself paying a lot of attention to dreams.

antiMusic: Why is that?

Stephen:I was in an intense psychological state at the time. I had just spent four months in a monastery in Spain to get enlightened, which failed. I came back to London and felt myself in a very strange state, I started to read Jung and I started to pay attention to dreams - these dreams happened at that time, if I had these dreams now I don't think they would have had the same effect.

antiMusic: Do you still feel as though dreams are significant?

Stephen:I do, I don't feel the way that I did then in the sense that it was an extremely intense time for me. I think that to some extent, things have changed a bit. But I still pay attention to my dreams, and I try to write them down. I think that that's a valuable thing to do. It's very rewarding.

antiMusic: Who are your other influences, musical and otherwise?

Stephen:30's Jazz, 60's French Pop and Modern Electronic Minimalism (Steve Reich, Max Richter) and Electronic music too. That stuff is just amazing.

antiMusic: What's been your favorite instrument used? What instrument would you like to use, that you haven't already?

Stephen:A machine from the 1970's, it's really a toy instrument called an optigan. It was made like a keyboard that you put discs into. It's a lot like a mellotron; it's my favorite instrument. As for an instrument I haven't used already, I'm interested in musical glasses. It would be good to compose a piece using those.

antiMusic: How do you go about making music?

Stephen:Well, I've got a studio and I work there every day. I'm generally a creature of routine so I like to work early mornings and late nights. I just keep the same hours everyday, it's a bit like going to the office. So I work in the studio, and I produce a lot of crap. Every now and again I produce something excellent. There doesn't seem to be any other way to avoid producing the crap, you have to critique it to make the good stuff. It's like ‘panning for gold'. I do it everyday and it's incredibly boring. I use instruments and my sampler while I write a line of words and start making a noise. As long as I'm doing it, I don't mind what I do.

antiMusic: Is there anyone you'd especially enjoy working with?

Stephen:There are a lot of people that I'd like to work with, particularly Michel Gondry. I loved his film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

antiMusic: How does it make you feel to hear that you have so many dedicated fans?

Stephen:Baffled. I just feel incredibly fortunate to be doing what I'm doing and make an impact in peoples lives. It's an amazing thing. The fact that people hear it and get into it is very affirming. It makes me very pleased if anything because it's what I like to do.

antiMusic: What musicians have you been listening to lately? Any guilty pleasures?

Stephen:Contemporary-wise, I love anything through the London label, Fat Cat Records. I've been listening to Max Richter, Gonzalaz and I loved Jim Burken's latest album. As for guilty pleasures, I'd rather keep that private.

antiMusic: What are your favorite pastimes?

Stephen:I work all the time, but when I'm not working I like to go walking in Scotland. I love to read books about the history of London as well as books on psychology. I'm interested in archaeology, specifically the Prehistoric era. I also enjoy learning about the time just before the Romans, 2000 years ago.

antiMusic: Any final thoughts?