Billie Ray Martin is no stranger to bop2pop. No sooner had we profiled her contributions to music when she announced a new project, The Opiates who last year released the brilliant, Hollywood Under The Knife. The album made many best of year lists and now they are back for an encore with a new deluxe digital double album download called Hollywood Cuts. It includes exceptional remixes and reinterpretations with contributions from members of Hercules and Love Affair, Throbbing Gristle, Dan Beaumont and Disco Bloodbath. We are including the just-released video for the Disco Bloodbath Remix of Candy Coated Crime.
Have we told you how much we love Billie Ray Martin lately? She is a goddess and the ultimate queen of cool electronic soul. Her latest incarnation is The Opiates, whose album, Hollywood Under The Knife, was released last year. Lucky for us, they have just released a video for Silent Comes the Nightmare (Again) a song about insomnia, and the video perfectly captures that hazy, semi-conscious, frustrating state.
The Opiates is a collaboration project between Billie Ray Martin and Robert Solheim that began 3 years ago when they performed songs together (including Anatomy of a Plastic Girl) at the Rough Trade record shop. They are set to release their debut album, Hollywood Under the Knife, next month. Anatomy of a Plastic Girl is the second single and explores the devastating consequences of a hopeful Hollywood starlet who is scarred emotionally and physically by a botched facelift. It was directed by Jörn Hartmann. We love the creepy themes of the song and visuals. And as always, Billie Ray Martin looks great (does she not ever age?)!
We can’t believe the year is half over, and what a year it has been for us. After 3 incredible years of following other people’s blogs on electronic and synthpop music, we decided to create our own. We weren’t sure if it would succeed, honestly. Our core music interests lie in synthpop and 80s music, and the genre had begun to fade from public flavor. We weren’t sure if there would still be music to write about, which is why we didn’t directly reference the genre in our name. We were wrong, very wrong, judging from the amount of incredible music that has come out this year and from the amount of readers we have won over. We would like to give special thanks to Daybehavior who included our quote to promote their single and Fil Ok, who has contacted us about using our quote for his press release. We would also like to thank Marsheaux and Kid Kasio who have tweeted about us. We would also like to thank the bands who have posted or commented about us on Facebook or posted our review on their website like Shindu, The Scientists of Modern Music, Miracle, Northern Kind, Starlings and Queen of Hearts (we are sure we are leaving stuff out, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate your support). We also like to thank NewNextNow for picking up our concert review of OMD and publishing it on their website. Ultimately, we like to thank you, our readers. We have grown expotientally, since our first post in March. To give you a sense of this, here is a chart that shows the number of page totals for the 4 months we have been live.
We are so happy you are finding interest in what we are writing about and promise to continue the hard work we have begun for your enjoyment. Feel free to write to us about how we are doing and what you would like to have covered. We promise it will inflate our egos and give us continual motivation. You can email us or visit us on Facebook. We would like to give a summary of the year so far, so without further babbling…
Then: Billie Ray Martin began her musical career as a vocalist for the house outfit Electribe 101, but is most famous for Your Loving Arms that was released twice and both times made the UK and US charts, something unheard of in the US for a dance single. This was followed by Running Around Town and later Honey, both of which were successes on the dance charts.
Now: In 2007, Billie Ray Martin resurfaced with Undisco Me, which became a hit on the UK dance charts. Last year, in conjunction with download torrent Mininova, she released The Crackdown Project which was dance reinterpretations of classic Cabaret Voltaire tracks. The result was surprisingly sublime. She has just released a new ep, Solid Life/Fantasy Girl and she sounds better than ever. This woman is amazing.
Billie Ray Martin – Sweet Suburban Disco (Vince Clarke Remix)
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