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Black tape for a blue girl 10 Neurotics ~ SALE $5
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Spiritual Front Armageddon Gigolo
Rome Flowers from Exile
10 Neurotics reimagines the passion of Black Tape For A Blue Girl (and visionary founder / songwriter, Sam Rosenthal) in a rock / dark cabaret setting. Sam challenged himself to put the electronics and lushness aside; he wrote these songs on the acoustic guitar, an instrument he had never played before. The results bear a more considered approach to songwriting: structured, melodic and dare say even “traditional” in composition. It is a new approach to the mood and power for which Blacktape is known.
Featuring drum kit and bass for the first time in 20 years (courtesy of new band-member Brian Viglione of The Dresden Dolls & The Cliks), these fourteen songs are revealing first person narratives. These are stories so unnerving and personal that 10 Neurotics features an all-new line-up; the previous vocalists quit the group out of discomfort with the content.
Sam explains, “Many of the scenes take place in the fetish lifestyle: a culture of heightened sexuality, relationship dynamics, power and control. I set out to create an album that looks at our sexuality, obsessions and fetishes with a mature (rather than sensationalized) eye. Our life is a constant churning of desires, sometimes overtaking us - more often subverted, submerged and repressed. I wanted to directly confront reality: who are we when the disguise is stripped away? I wrote from real life as a way to plug directly into the core of pure experience without filtering it, I developed something genuinely fresh and vital.”
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What Viglione brings to the 20-year-old group on the new disc, 10 Neurotics, is drums and bass - meaning Black Tape - essentially a new band now - slides somewhat toward the rock band world. But just somewhat, sort of like Tom Waits or Serge Gainsbourg or Beat Circus. There's strange beauty and gloomy darkness, compulsion, revulsion and decadence. As former Spahn Ranch vocalist Athan Maroulis sings in "Tell Me You've Taken Another," a song of betrayal, "Yet there is a painful joy." In "Sailor Boy," Maroulis sings of losing his feeling, his need for his lover, the result being I "lose myself in this puddle of drugs."
Rosenthal, who handles the electronics, words and music, says, "Many of the scenes take place in the fetish lifestyle: a culture of heightened sexuality, relationship dynamics, power and control. Naked and honest, they lie along the continuum from the erotic to the neurotic. I wrote from real life as a way to plug directly into the core of pure experience without filtering it. I developed something genuinely fresh and vital. These are poeple I have met, dated or created." Maroulis handles most of the male vocals; Laruie Reade and Nicki Jaine handle the female vocals. And, yes, Rosenthal and company are creating a charged, sometimes spooky, very sexualized, male/female dynamic. (There's some stylishly provocative photos included in the CD insert booklet, too.)
Black Tape for a Blue Girl does not bang you over the head. It insinuates its way into your brain and creates this world of pleasure and pain.