Marc Bolan (Tyrannosaurus Rex period 1967-1970), Michael Nyman, Henry Purcell, Rammstein, Muse, Siouxsie and the Banshees, King Crimson, Black Sabbath etc
Sounds Like
early Marc Bolan, Donovan, Pixies, Placebo, Left Banke, Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock
Re-Animator! New Album out now!
“Gothic-psych-baroque-rocker waxing demented in a way only an Englishman can...impeccable.” (Goldmine, USA).
‘Absolute genius! A great piece of melancholic music. A bittersweet mixture of soft old school Batcave and real Gothic’. (‘Black’, German Rock Magazine)
“Genius at play! Roland must be ranked with the most creative and unique songwriters of his generation...the work of an exceptional talent. If Shakespeare, Poe and Conan Doyle were alive today, they would surely have some Roland in their record collections. Unfortunately they’re dead...what’s your excuse?” (Bucketful of Brains, UK)
England’s psych-pop guru Paul Roland, described by one-time label mate Robyn Hitchcock as ‘the male Kate Bush’, releases his first new rock album for ten years on his own label, Gaslight Records, on June 16th.. ‘Re-Animator’ (GASCD 555) features contributions from musicians who have recorded with Caravan, Jimi Hendrix and Steve Hillage.
Those who relish Paul’s atmospheric tales of Victorian serial killers, mad women in the attic, Dickensian underworld characters and eccentric Edwardian inventors will know what forbidden pleasures await them on this album which features several songs with an HP Lovecraft theme and one inspired by a tale by Edgar Allen Poe. In the past Paul has conceived his fanciful tales from his own imagination as if his lyrics were 19th century short stories, but for this album he drew on HP Lovecraft and Poe for several of the tracks.
Roland, who appeared at the Wave Gotik Treffen festival last year and at the Herbsnachte festival in Berlin in 2003 has long been associated with the goth movement, but as this album shows there are many more facets to this most enigmatic Englishman who was once managed by David Enthoven (manager of Roxy Music, ELP and T.Rex) and June Bolan (wife of Marc Bolan) and asked to collaborate with film composer Michael Nyman and members of the Velvet Underground. Roland, who wrote all the tracks and produced the album has painstakingly crafted a late 60s/early 70s retro soundscape conjured up by the imaginative use of mellotron, violin, flute, harpsichord and a Barrett era Pink Floyd-style organ.
The five tracks inspired by Lovecraft (‘Re-Animator’, ‘Charles Dexter Ward’, ‘Arkham’, ‘Abdul Alhazred’ [an instrumental sketch of the ‘mad Arab’ who discovered the ‘Necronomicon’] and the epic ‘Cthullu’ are rendered in a wryly pulp horror comic vein which evokes the psychedelic Sixties rather than straight-faced Goth. This is a theme echoed by the radio friendly ‘Swamp Girl’ which would have certainly wowed them down at the Whisky A Go Go had Roland been around at the time while the exotic, eastern flavoured mantra ‘Assassins’ blends acid-pop with Led Zeppelin. Elsewhere there are further unexpected delights in the darkly sardonic ‘Chain Gang’ which could be a sequel to Robert Johnson’s story of his deal with the devil at the Crossroads, ‘Pan’, a paen to the male libido which conjures up the spirit of Jethro Tull, Traffic and Family and ‘Taliesin’, a folk rock fable Fairport Convention would have been proud of. But the real highlights of this collection must surely be ‘Valdemar’, based on Poe’s tale of a dying man suspended between this world and the world beyond, and ‘Cthullu’ which closes the album in epic style.
“If pop music had existed in the 19th century, Roland would have been a star.”
(Music Week, UK)
Cult English recording artist Paul Roland, described as "the male Kate Bush" by one-time label mate Robyn Hitchcock, has released 10 albums for collectable labels such as Bam Caruso, New Rose and Imaginary in a low-key career that has seen him acclaimed on the continent but criminally ignored in his native England.
In England he is better known as a writer of mass market books on mysticism and the occult for major publishers. However, his reputation as a uniquely imaginative and consistently fascinating figure on the psych-pop circuit has substantially increased with each album. Other cult figures such as Robyn Hitchcock, Nick Saloman (Bevis Frond), Nick Nicely, and Andy Ellison (John’s Children) have made guest appearances on his albums, several of which are now listed as highly collectable.
Since 1979 Paul has been spinning his bizarre tales against an evocative backdrop of rock, psychpop, folk and, occasionally, baroque strings. His most memorable character creations include a crotchety Regency magistrate, various 19th century murderers, a retired executioner, an opium addict, and an entire court of medieval grotesques. But not all his dreams are dark. Among his more whimsical creations are the eccentric characters on the largely acoustic album ’Happy Families’ and its prequel ’A Cabinet of Curiosities’.
Dear Mr Roland! Thank you so much for sharing your phantastic music with me! I am a great fan of your sounds since many years! Love Nosferatu and Waiting for Naiti so much! WOW Hope you have a wonderful time! All the best to you! LOVE AND PEACE Greetings Nicole -Germany
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Mona Mur – Ash Wednesday – Marti (Beaut) – Wolfgang Müller (Die Tödliche Döris) – Pierre Ouin – Pantaleimon - Theo Hakola (Orchestre Rouge, Passion Fodder) – Mike Watt (The Minutemen, The Black Gang, The Stooges) – Little Annie – Kinki Texas - Jerry Teel (Chrome Cranks, The Knoxville Girls, The Big City Stompers) - Dimi Dero (Dimi Dero Inc.) – Lily Crachat - Gilles R. Maurice - Matty Rue Morgue (The Holy Kiss) – Pauline Teel – Babet (Dionysos) – Elliott Levin (Cecil Taylor‘s Ensemble, Calvin Weston’s Big Tree) - Tav Falco (Panther Burns) – Pat. Pend. - Antic Clay (Myssouri) – David Fenech - Baby Face Nelson (The Little Rabbits, French Cowboy) - Jessie Evans – Carla Bozulich (The Geraldine Fibbers, Scarnella, Ethyl Meatplow) – Dennis Palmer - Brett W. Schultz (Woman) - Rykarda Parasol – Baroness Jessy Montaigne (The Magick Daggers) – Kristian Hoffman – Bliss Blood (Pain Teens, Nightcall, Delta Dreambox) – Mr Mudd (Slowboat Ink. & Film) - Ralph Carney (The Oranj Symphonette, The B52’s, Tom Waits) – Johnny Lockjaw (The Creepniks) – Marc Dixon – Quiltman – Miss Ming - Eugene S. Robinson (Oxbow, Whipping Boy) – John Molyneux – Karl J. Vogt (The Vortexans, The Ivan Gencheff Explosion) - Jae Persons – Scott Johnny Williams (The Dead South.) – Heidi Hellbender (Gothic Outhouse, M-99, The Oblivion Seekers) – Rolo Mcginty (The Woodentops) – Pete Simonelli (The Enablers) – Dana Schechter (Angels of Light, Bee and Flower) – Bruce Hodder – Jeff Wagner (The Tunnel of Love, The Tunnel) - Strings Of Consciousness – Tom Shannon (Cheater Slicks) – Kapreles – John Sparrow (Violent Femmes, Steve Mac Kay, The Danglers) - Henry Hugo - Jake Edwards – Andy Abrahamson (The Big Disappointments) – Glenn Prior – Pierre de Gaillande (Melomane, The Snow, Pee Air) – Ted Parsons (Foetus, Swans, Prong, Jesu) - Merle Leonce Bone
It's just the beginning.
(We thank them). And it continues. All are welcome!
Thanks for the add! Been a fan for many many years, and am delighted that you..re still going strong. Looking very much forward to the new album, and also the re-releases of the good old classics. Hope to see you play live somewhere soon!
http://www.mysticrecords.co.uk is the site for you if you want to pre-order this long-awaited Black Widow DVD. If you do so you'll have this legendary show very soon.
BLACK WIDOW's Sensational Recording
A fantastic piece of Rock History In Stock 16th November
This is a real piece of history. The short lived "Sacrifice" stage show that caused such an outcry in the UK, was recorded for German television in 1970.
