All That Bluster LP

Description

Capturing an extraordinary piece of musical history, Nina & The Fireflies finally release their All That Bluster set through WRWTFWW Records. Now the world can finally hear the bewitching psychedelic conjurations hatched at Nina Walsh's Facility 4 studio between 2018-2019 with guitar maestro Franck Alba that partly serves as a lost soundtrack to TV psychodrama Killing Eve. The album is available on limited edition LP, released in conjunction with an EP with 4 Andrew Weatherall remixes (also on WRWTFWW), as well as on CD (with all remixes included). There were times when this album's creation more resembled a surreal action musical. At its core was Nina's cocoon-like studio situated in the crime-ridden no man's land between Streatham and Mitcham where Nina and long-time creative partner Andrew Weatherall had been producing stellar remixes, albums including Qualia and as Woodleigh Research Facility, including Phonox Nights completed shortly before he passed in February 2020. The studio space next door was occupied by guitarist Franck Alba from cult Anglo-French darkwave outfit Piano Magic, who had met Nina on the vibrant scene around Crystal Palace's Antenna Studios that became the Fireflies' gestation pod. Although Nina had sang on her 2009 solo album Bright Lights and Filthy Nights, it took months of the duo playing together to bring her mellifluously melodic vocals confidently to the fore. The catalyst to capturing this startling new sound on record came when Nina started and Weatherall conceptualized her Moine Dubh label in 2015 to record local folk singers and poets. Fireflies' spooked reinterpretation of Kip Tyler's 1958 hoodoo rockabilly classic 'She's My Witch' became second in the label's five seven-inch singles run. Impressing Killing Eve's music supervisor, 'She's My Witch' manifested in 2019's season two, its night-stalking shadow-sashay chiming perfectly with the onscreen mood. Asked to contribute more songs, Nina and Franck commenced solidifying the Fireflies sound on a compositional exploration murder spree. Basing her music on Killing Eve's characters after scripts failed to show, tracks included the badass cosmic rock 'n' roll grind of 'Heidi' and sub-aquatic kaleidoscope shimmer of 'Get Out Of Town' (brilliantly accompanying one of Killing Eve's kill shots) before inexplicable forces prevented the inclusion of further Fireflies songs. This left the songs included on this spellbinding album completed at the suggestion of Mr. Weatherall (who likened it to early Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds); heaving, weaving and wafting through Nina's spectral vocals invoking arcane pagan folk, pop-worm hooks, astral melodies and Link Wray on acid, lathered in Franck's other-worldly twang and guitar extrapolations. The album begins with 'On The Mountain Side' electrocuting English folk-rock aboard Franck's strident fuzz-banjo before Nina's magisterial vocal (earning its cinematic place in Irish comedy thriller Pixie), continuing with Cramps-crawling 'Out Of The Light', dirt slow defiant 'If Freedom Comes', 'Smokin''s love bomb to the heart with its yearning "Won't you come on home?" hook and 'Time To Go''s rollicking go-go frug. Desolately poignant ballad 'Je Te Vois' features Nina uncaging her inner Francoise Hardy, singing in French on its emotional lost love serenade. Tail wagging folk-rocker 'Carob Tree' was inspired by Nina acquiring her beloved Podenco rescue dog Binky in Spain, and she had just relocated to Dorset in 2021 when she wrote the darkly resonant 'We Don't Die', welcoming old friend Ivan Chandler on the Hammond organ he once used backing Dusty Springfield. With its towering widescreen chorus, 'We Don't Die' beautifully illustrated the skyrocketing maturity in Nina's songwriting since 2018, her confidence reflected in the project becoming Nina & The Fireflies. Closing the album on a no-holds-barred high, 'Orion' roars with Ivan's swirling Hammond bolstering its 'Ghost Riders In The Sky'-flecked astral gallop. Working in the programming room next door, Andrew Weatherall would pop his head around the door with suggestions including his request to remix the whole album. At one point Nina and Franck would be writing and recording while Andrew remixed their tracks in close proximity. Along with 'Get Out Of Town', 'If Freedom Comes' and ''Smokin'', 'Je Te Vois' is one of the four tracks Andrew got as far as mixing before passing, ingeniously turning it into a time-stopping duet by pitching Nina's vocal down. His four last remixes are included on separate 12-inch EP. Under the eternally long shadow of their fallen comrade who suggested it, Nina and Franck had crafted a timeless album for the ages that still sounds like nothing else on this or any other planet, floating on heaven's flower beds laughing at the hell below. Points of interests - For fans of folk, psychedelic, guitar, rock, Killing Even the tv series, Andrew Weatherall, Françoise Hardy, The Cramps, Noir Pop… - Limited edition release of Nina & The Fireflies's All That Bluster album, a lost soundtrack for tv series Killing Eve and one gem of an album ! LP and CD (with bonuses) !