Never bored, so I’ll never get old…
Normally we’d just post this kind of thing in the press release section above. But, I think this one is worth a mention here, if not only for the excerpt from David’s contribution to the CD booklet…
————————————————————————————————————-
Release date: 17th September 2007
The Buddha of Suburbia was David Bowie?s 19th full studio album released in 1993. Asked to write and perform the music for the BBC2 four part mini series, although classified as a soundtrack, only the title track on the album was featured in the programme itself. A television adaptation of a 1990 book written by Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia is a (semi) autobiographical tale featuring Karim ? a South London teenager desperate to escape the suburbs which confine him. Kureishi at the time was already well known for his screenplay of My Beautiful Launderette, the 1985 film which centered on issues of sexuality, race and class in volatile 1980?s Britain.
Tracklisting:
02 Sex And The Church (6:25)
03 South Horizon (5:26)
04 The Mysteries (7:12)
05 Bleed Like A Craze, Dad (5:22)
06 Strangers When We Meet (4:58)
07 Dead Against It (5:48)
08 Untitled No. 1 (5:01)
09 Ian Fish, U.K. Heir (6:27)
10 Buddha Of Suburbia (4:19) (featuring Lenny Kravitz on guitar)
All songs written by David Bowie
?This album may well have been one of the most enjoyable projects that I?ve been involved with. Although this collection of music bears little resemblance to the motif driven small pieces that became the actual transmitted soundtrack for the BBC play of Buddha, director Roger Mitchell?s request that I supply some stuff for Hanif Kureishi?s fabulous play got me on a real roll.
Weeks later however, left to my own devices, these same pieces just took on a life of their own in the studio, with lots of narrative provocation from Hanif?s play and dozens of personal 70’s memories providing a textural backdrop in my imagination that laid the groundwork for a truly exciting work situation.
I took the TV play motifs and discarded them completely except that is for the theme song. The pace of work was unbelievably frenetic taking only 6 days to write and record though a full fifteen days to mix, owing in part to some technical breakdowns ? nothing too serious but enough to put our team out by five or six days.
My personal memory stock for this album was made up from an almighty plethora of influences and reminiscences from the 1970`s. Here, below, is just a tiny selection of what went through my mind while writing.
Free association lyrics
Kraftwerk
Pink Floyd
Bromley
Harry Partch
Croydon
Costume
Eno
Blues clubs Soho
Prostitutes & Soho
Unter de Linden
Ronnie Scott`s club
Brücke Museum in Berlin
Travels thru Russia
Pet Sounds
Loneliness
Friends of the Krays I had known
O`Jays
Neu
Mark Bolan
Philip Glass in New York clubs
Richard Strauss
Philip Glass playing in London 1970/1
Drag
T.Rex
Die Mauer, Berlin
The Casserole
Drugs
Roxy Music
Mum
The list is actually endless but the above initially springs to mind. Fifty percent of the lyrical content is used just because I like the sound of the word. Some of it is reasonably narrative driven. Many of my working forms are taken in whole or in part from my collaborations with Brian Eno, (who in my humble opinion occupies a parallel position in late 20th century popular music that Clement Greenberg in the 40`s or Richard Hamilton in the 60`s had to visual art.) The cut-up style that is obviously used on such tracks as Bleed Like A Craze, Dad (yes, it is a play on Krays) and Dead Against it springs from the Brion Gyson/William Burroughs school of Fucking with the Fabric of Time. The very magical multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay was so pivotal in interpreting my musical desires, foibles and arrangements that it’s just not funny.?
————————————————————————————————————-
The Buddha of Suburbia CD and DVD are both released on September 17th. (05.14.2007 RUMOUR: BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA TO GET DVD AND CD RELEASE? & 06.04.2007 NEWS: BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA DVD AND CD UPDATE).