NEW MUSIC: THE OPIATES (BILLIE RAY MARTIN)

Billie Ray Martin’s back with a new venture – The Opiates. This is a collaboration with Robert Solheim. They have a new release – Rainy Days and Remixes EP – out next month. This is a return to her former glories with Electribe 101 (here) and evokes memories of her classic collaboration with Spooky (here). More on Billie here.

There’s a minimix of the EP to listen. Her voice is in fine fettle. It still has that distant, creepy lovesick air. The music is described as dark electronic pop. And it is. But it does also share similaritieswith her early 90s work, rather than the terrible hi-NRG dance rubbish of the mid-90s.

Blurb: The Opiates is the latest project from the “queen of electronic soul” Billie Ray Martin, together with Norwegian musician Robert Solheim. The long awaited taster of remixes and first single from the forthcoming album ‘Hollywood Under the Knife’. For The Opiates, these remixes by such greats as Hercules and Love Affair’s Kim Ann Foxman, as well as all-time heroes Chris and Cosey of Throbbing Gristle, are a dream come true. The results are magnetic. The XHK Mix with its hard Dubstep flavour completes the picture and gives the song a completely new voice and vibe. With the single ‘Rainy Days and Saturdays’, The Opiates live up to their ‘Carpenters of Electro’ title and hope to conquer airwaves and underground alike. It’s a song about the transvestite Candy Darling who, although leading the wild life and preparing for a sex change, dreams of married life and a house in the suburbs. The album ‘Hollywood Under the Knife’ will be released on Disco Activisto Records both digitally and as a CD on 17 October, featuring nine unreleased images by Turner Prize winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who opened his entire archive, granting The Opiates free choice of images.

http://www.billieraymartin.com/

http://www.facebook.com/theopiates

~ by acidted on August 26, 2011.