michael dracula

MICHAEL DRACULA BLACK TIGHTS / WHITE NOISE
When I relaunched ZE Records in 2003, I’ve been contacted by Twich, half of the
Glasgow Dj duo « Optimo ». Twich had started to build a ZE Records fan web site,
and was managing the already cult « Optimo » club in Glasgow. That’s where Emily MacLaren, an exile American girl from Ohio, partly conceived her band MICHAEL
DRACULA. Originally, 3 girls and a drummer guy, that’s with this line up that Twich
presented me the band. The first demos fitted perfectly with the music Michael Zilkha
and myself were producing on ZE 25 years earlier in New York. For that very reason,
Michael Dracula seemed to be the worthy heir to this glorious period ; without the restraining nostalgia but with an essential quality : the ability of writing timeless songs.
« I was lucky to be given the opportunity to work with ZE (as I still recall Michel Esteban
advising me at the start of recording to, “think of yourself as a sniper...”), as they didn’t
try to nudge me into any current musical milieu, but rather encouraged me to find
my own sound and go with that. I always found the label to be a label of mavericks
and misfits, who couldn’t be easily categorised and perhaps got by on humour and
character as much as on musicianship, and I suppose that’s the only category I could
ever really fit into ». Emily McLaren
Michael Dracula finally started recording in 2004 their first tracks for ZE : during two
years we tried several studios, Glasgow, London or Paris but I wasn›t able to find this
« magic » neither the spirit I thought I perceived with the first demos. Not being totally
satisfied by those recordings, I decided not to release it as it was. After 2 years of
work, frustration was intense for both parties, but one needed to bow to the facts, we
weren›t, paradoxically, on the same wavelength and the split happened almost naturally, as I didn›t even signed a proper contract with the band.
Actually, this clash was soon followed by the band›s split a few months later and Emily
MacLaren was just about to quit music and go back to the US when Robert Anderson
advised her to call me back. It was like a new beginning for Michael Dracula, « band »
in fact composed by just one person. That›s when I realized that the demos I loved
so much had been recorded by Emily by herself in her room, and that the band was
in fact more a bridle than a real support. Indeed, beyond the fact that Emily is a pure
musical genius : writing, composing, and playing almost all instruments on the album,
she never set out to write music in any particular style, as a listener she gravitates
towards fingernails-on-chalkboard guitars of the Birthday Party just as much as sentimental Roy Orbison›s ballads, just trying to let each song have its own style. It›s academics that try to dissect it and classify it to fit a particular style or, even worse, target ; Emily
MacLaren just does her own music.
Equally fortuitous was the fact that I, Michel Bassignani (our own Jack Nitzsche...)
and Emily, we all share the same obsession with music, especially for the Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop or Brian Wilson and the same priority
that, although we wanted there to be a unique “sound” to the album, there were actual
songs underneath that sound, and that those songs should each have a unique personality.
Emily’s only other priority was contradiction: « I love music which is as charming as
it is menacing (that usually goes for people, too...) and have always been inspired by
the Kenneth Anger film “Scorpio Rising”, and how those songs, which to some might
seem innocent, bubble-gum doo-wap, are rendered so haunting and sinister in the
film ». Emily McLaren
I had a big house in the south of France and the three of us decided to transform - a la
Exile on Main Street - what was originally a ballroom (this old tumble-down mansion,
built more than 300 years ago, used to be « la maison du peuple », headquarter of the
local socialist party in the sixties) into a recording studio. Therefore, we filled this huge
room with vintage instruments, partly bought on eBay, including Farfisa and Wurlitzer
organs, an old shindy English piano, a Gretsch drum kit from the 70’s, some out of age
Fenders Twin Reverb, a Space Echo, a few Neuman and a whole odds and ends that
Joe Meek or our master Phyl Spector wouldn’t have disavowed.
For more than 2 years we recorded over 30 tracks between burst of laughter and burst
of tears. Ten of them appear on Michael Dracula’s debut album. During that time one
can say that Mrs MacLaren bluffed me. Even if I probably recorded or took part of the
recording of more than 40 albums during my eclectic “career”, coasting along geniuses
such as Chet Baker, John Cale or other extremely talented musicians, I’ve never seen
such a talented and all-round artist, able to write, compose and play all instruments
with this disconcerting ease.... But also capable of ravaging her guest room like Keith
Richard in any Holiday Inn during the US 75 tour; able to have such a global vision
of her music from the very first bass-line recordings, or to add the drum pattern after
the guitar tracks (which some of them were played backward - in one shot - and then
transferred back to the tape magneto in order to get that special « effect » she was
looking for). And then, I also have to admit I love bass played by girls. The world greatest bass player used to be a woman to my opinion : Carol Kaye. Phil Spector’ session
woman, playing on almost all Spector’s production, plus thousands of other classics
among which one can find all the Beach Boys hits, the entire album Pet Sound, and
I’m not even mentioning recording sessions for Presley, Franck & Nancy Sinatra, or
Tamla Motown.... But my mind is becoming unhinged, or maybe not, in fact.
« Some of my favourite records have organs that sound like guitars and vice versa, or
guitars that sound as if they were playing in the next room (some of this, as on early
Studio One singles, was out of necessity due to tiny studios which displaced pianos or
horn sections to the back garden), or underwater (as in the recordings of Joe Meek),
or by handicapped children (as in The Shaggs)... » Emily McLaren
After two years of recording it’s pretty difficult for us to have a view of this album in
proper perspective and to imagine how it’s about to be received by the audience and
the media ; especially in those times of deep revolution in the music business. However, this never has been a major consideration at ZE Records, we always produced
albums we wanted to listen to, without being preoccupied by others’ opinion, which
also leads to drive our bankers crazy... The result is just what was expected : driving
rhythms on an out of tune piano, repetitive drums with minimal fills, Motown bass-lines
played by a white girl from Ohio, five guitar parts all playing the same wierd note while
the ghost of an organ hums a tune on the periphery of your hearing, and a chorus of
backing vocals chanting from the bathroom, all providing the backing track for songs
about the complexities of human relationships, and getting fucked up.
« Although it was two years in the making, and was first conceived as a sort of obituary
to the first four years of Michael Dracula, In The Red will always be a sort of work in
progress, as much of our recording technique and style was really just a mix of instinct
and accident. The idea behind this recording was based on a frustration about what
seemed to be standard production for most modern albums. A production where every
instrument sounds punchy and powerful, where there is a bland democracy in the
mix which renders everything clear and equally present, no mistakes or even happy
accidents.» Emily McLaren
To my opinion, this album seems out of time. Some songs could clearly be the soundtrack
of Lynch’s Blue Velvet as much as of the new Wong Kar Wai film. Emily is one of the
major artists of her time and no matter the number of albums or the time needed for
her to be recognized as such. I’m proud to have been part of this album... and eager
to produce the following one.
Michel Esteban
RATIONAL HATRED
KILLING TIME
If I talk slow I’ve had my blow(s) and I’d like to go
To a parking lot, it’s a vacant plot
Don’t you know you would get your kicks
You’d get your kicks if I weren’t eight stone and from the styx
To fix my rational hatred
You’ve moved to your mother’s
Where the days run into each other
Nobody to take you to the bar
Stay home and be a movie star
Keep your hands off my synthesiser,
You dirty kaiser !
Most people in control have no rock’n’roll
They have no soul
This is my respite
Despite my rational hatred
Kick it against the pricks
Rational hatred,
Why don’t we bury the hatchet ?
I’ve got too many eggs in my basket...
Lyrics and Music by Emily MacLaren
P & © ZE Records Mundo Lta
One of these day’s I should give you a call
But what do you say after you say, « Hello » ?
I pay attention for forty seconds
And then I have to go
Life’s a drag without a fag
I saw you on the street
Looking very bad indeed
How the hell are you supposed to eat ?
Nothing comes ‘til the end of the week
You’ll be in bed by nine
There’s no better way to kill time
Lyrics and Music by Emily MacLaren
P & © ZE Records Mundo Lta
The Draculettes : Chantal Bassignani, Ophelie Doll & Nubia Esteban
Art cover & booklet design by Michel Esteban
All songs written, composed and performed by Emily MacLaren
Recorded at South Factory Studio,
Sauve, south of France July 2005-August 2006
Engineered and mixed by Michel Bassignani
Directed by Michel Bassignani & Emily MacLaren
Mastered by Lionel Risler at Sofreson, Paris
Produced by Michel Esteban
Michael Dracula would like to thank:
Michel Bassignani, Michel Esteban, Leyre Mann-Vadillo, John Whyte,
Robert Anderson, Andrew Robertson, Chantal Bassignani, Nubia Esteban,
Ophélie Doll, Martin Brennan, Matthew Black, James Steenson, Andrew Brown,
Laura Donnaghey, China Yougstrom, Ryan Purcell, Jonnie Wilkes, Mike Toner,
Keith MacIvor, Ben Wallers, Tam Coyle, Darren Robertson, Mary Knox, Janet Wilson,
Martin Clark, Leo Hinstin, Vincent Tajan, and Nelum Jayasinhje.
All songs published by ZE Multimedia Music. P & © 2007 ZE Records Mundo Ltda