Foetus SOAK and JG Thirlwell The Blue Eyes Original Soundtrack

Ectopic Ents is proud to announce the release of two new albums from JG Thirlwell:

Foetus SOAK and JG Thirlwell The Blue Eyes Original Soundtrack Recording

 

The long awaited Foetus album, SOAK is a companion to 2010's acclaimed epic HIDE. The 11 track album contains a ton of new material as well as the Foetus cover of "Warm Leatherette", a remix of "Cosmetics" by Secret Chiefs 3 and much more. It continues and expands on some of the themes explored in HIDE and features guest appearances opera singers Abby Fischer and Natalie Galpern. 

 

JG Thirlwell's chamber soundtrack to the film "The Blue Eyes" is also released. The original score was created for Eva Aridjis' Mexican-lensed thriller, and is performed with an ensemble which includes violin, viola, cello, french horn, contrabass, tuba and bass trombone, with JG on all other instruments and production duties.

 

 

The albums are available from www.foetus.org. 

 

What is SOAK?

 

The highly anticipated new Foetus album, SOAK contains an exhausting barrage of ideas and atmospheres, and confounding neo-mythologies that will have audio archaeologists trying to dissect and interpret it for years to come. Though a mighty standalone statement, SOAK is also a companion, or sequel if you will, to the last Foetus album HIDE : some of the tracks on SOAK were begun at the same time as the HIDE sessions, or were recorded since but provide a conceptual progression or expansion on some of the themes and ideas of HIDE. 

 

 

The album kicks off with the beat-heavy "Red and Black and Gray and White", a celebration of the color scheme of Foetus album covers and an opportunity to proclaim them in the patriotic  style of cheerleading and military cadence. The track employs the drumming of Jeff Davidson, where exuberant paramiltary rhythms collide with chain gangs, big band brass stabs and call-and -response vocals kick off the album in a blistering breathless blast, echoing JG's intense action-packed scores for the Adult Swim cartoon Venture Bros. "Pratheism" continues JG's voyage into opera which began with HIDE's "Cosmetics", this time abetted by mezzo soprano Valerie Galpern. In the multi-movement composition, which will also appear in Thirlwell's forthcoming opera, heavy drums drive the bombastic orchestrations, propelled by urgent choral vocals and pulsing analog synthesizer. Singer Abby Fischer joins JG on the lilting seductive piece "Alabastar", also written for the forthcoming opera, the track being a paean to the singer's inanimate partner. JG's version of The Normal's electronic post-punk classic "Warm Leatherette" originally appeared in the 7" box set collection Recovery along with the likes of Johann Johannsson, Fennesz and Alva Noto.  JG was commissioned to record a cover version of John Carpenter's "Halloween" whlle creating the sound design for the website of the remake of the classic horror film. JG decided to resurrect it, merging it with an original piece "Turbulence". In the same way that Wendy Carlos' "Switched on Bach" took classical music and re-cast it in the electronic musical idiom, with his versions of "Halloween" and "Warm Leatherette", JG is taking classics of electronic music and recasting them in a symphonic idiom, reconfiguring them from the minimalism that made them distinctive at the time into a bombastic maximalism. "Kamikaze" is a post-milennial psychedelic meditation on Japanese suicide pilots, evoking a classic romanticism in it's Beatle-esque refrain. JG's eccentric interpretation "La Rua Madureira" follows, complete with balkanized mid-section and dream sequence, summoning the author of the song,  tragic french chanteur Nino Ferrer, who shot himself in the heart in 1998. Following the twisting cinematic opus of "Spat", Secret Chiefs 3 remix the Foetus track "Cosmetics" , turning it on it's head and infusing it with some of their style while retaining the mad collision of opera and prog. The album closes gently with the meditation-cum-lullabye "Mesmerin", blurring the line between anti-depressants and religious awakening.

 

What is THE BLUE EYES original soundtrack?

 

JG Thirlwell's chamber soundtrack to the film "The Blue Eyes" is also released on the same day. The original score was created for Eva Aridjis' Mexican-lensed supernatural thriller, and is performed with an ensemble which includes Manorexia almuni Karen Waltuch on violin & viola and Isabel Castelvi on cello plus Nathan Koci (Ensemble Modern, Bang On A Can etc) on french horn, James Ilgenfritz (Lukas Ligeti, Anthony Braxton ) on contrabass and Marcus Rojas (David Byrne, Steven Bernstein) on tuba and bass trombone, with JG on everything else, including piano, electronics and percussion. The film, set in Chiapas, Mexico, stars Allison Case (Hair, Mamma Mia, Nurse Jackie) and Zachary Booth (Taking Woodstock, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Darkhorse) and was released theatrically in Mexico.

 

 

What has JG Thirlwell been doing?

• Collaborated with Zola Jesus on the Versions album, where he rearranged her songs for string quartet and vocals. The album was released in August 2013 on Sacred Bones and they just completed a successful tour of the US and Europe supporting it.
• JG Thirlwell once again created the musical score of the hit Adult Swim series Venture Bros, season five of which premiered in 2013. Season 6 goes into production in early 2014.
• Toured the world with his chamber ensemble Manorexia
• Instigated new solo project Cholera Nocebo
• Collaborated with Melvins on a cover of David Bowie's "Station to Station" for their new album "Everybody Loves Sausages"
• Produced Karen O song "Strange Love" for the Tim Burton film Frankenweenie
• Created on sound installations with the collective freq_out in Amsterdam, Stockholm and Budapest
• Released the renowned Manorexia album "Dinoflagellate Blooms", in stereo and 5.1 surround sound
• Created a 53 channel, 38 minute composition for the Matthew Ritchie sculpture "The Morning Line" in Vienna for TBA 21 and much more