Edie Sedgwick – Things Are Getting Sinister And Sinisterer
As a big fan of Edie Sedgwick’s 2005 album “Her Love Is Real But She Is Not,” I found backtracking to Edie’s 1999 debut “First Reflections” to be a jump in cold water. While “Her Love Is Real…” was a potent mix of serious-unserious, reverently irreverent, fucked-up out-there celebrity trash-pop musings, “First Reflections” was almost all “out there,” making its seemingly free-form avant-garde mayhem a frustrating head scratch.
While the intent of that record was widely different, and thankfully has grown on me, I approached this new album, “Things Are Getting Sinister and Sinisterer,” with trepidation, knowing the chameleon nature of Ms. Sedgwick. Right from the lead track, “Sissy Spacek” returns me to comfortable territory, or about as comfortable as I can be where the refrain of a song is “and that pigs’ blood came down/in a red flood”. While this is all more fun experienced than explained, “Sissy Spacek” lends further examination to the lead actress’ classic scene in the movie Carrie. And while this does demonstrate Edie Sedgwick’s entire modus operandi (to spell it out: almost all the songs are about celebrities or celebrity culture), it is hardly the album’s highlight.
The first four tracks are all stop-dead show stoppers, with weird-ass funky straight-from-the-mothership computer-synths and a super tight repetitive rhythm section, combining the best elements of El Guapo and ESG. “March of The Penguins” makes for the first musical diversion, which features a skeletal framework for what might be the weirdest vocal melody on the album. While this feels pretty out of place it works as an ending to the first side, as does the album’s closing track “Edie Sedgwick II,” which is actually a straight up pretty pop song with a catchy na-na-na hook. While both of these songs are very good, they do feel out of place on an album mostly composed of super high energy dance beats and snarky lyrics, but they are the sort of songs that tip what is both good and bad about Edie Sedgwick. You get the feeling of almost excessive cleverness, a sort of musical versatility that can barely contain itself.
I can’t tell you how I would react if you had pitched me a “transgendered reincarnation of a vacuous Andy Warhol Superstar who died of a barbiturate overdose in 1971” who “travels through the dark American night presenting auditory and visual art that honors the likes of Angelina Jolie, Robert Downey, Jr., Paris Hilton, Martin Sheen, and other celebrity co-conspirators.” As best described in the one sheet as “low art meets high concept,” I can say that I hope people aren’t turned off by the concept, because this has been the most engaging and entertaining record I’ve played all year.
What other blogs are saying about Edie Sedwick – Things Are Getting Sinister And Sinisterer:
