Evoking a Film Noir, Smoky Jazz Club Torch Singer Atmosphere Louise Patricia Crane Releases Latest Single from Netherworld

Evoking a Film Noir, Smoky Jazz Club Torch Singer Atmosphere Louise Patricia Crane Releases Latest Single from Netherworld 

MIDNIGHT VIEW IS OUT TODAY

Photo Credit Carrie Davenport

“Evokes the spirits of Kate Bush and Tori Amos, with a smokey, gothic palette of Crane’s own” Classic Rock

“A wistful, breathless ride through the gothic dreamscape of the likes of Byron and Shelley, boasting equal measures of psychedelia, passion and longing, and a sprinkling of the spirit of Kate Bush”  Record Collector

“A Sensuous and seductive siren call to worlds filled with wonder…” Planet Rock

Showcasing her stylistically expansive vision on the forthcoming Netherworld album, Midnight View sees Louise Patricia Crane evoke a film noir, smoky jazz club “torch singer” atmosphere, with this uplifting, opulent and richly cinematic conclusion to the record. Her witching hour musings detailed within sensuous vocal delivery, Crane utilises the song’s timing to create a clever interplay — at once lyrically tying Netherworld‘s storytelling concept together — the perfect thematic bookend to where her album began; in the ‘world below’, with her lamenting Irish folksong Dance With The Devil.

Greatly demonstrating the progression and upwards trajectory of Crane’s sophisticated songwriting and abilities as a producer, in perhaps the most direct way so far, Midnight View marries the  essence of Joni Mitchell’s glossy Chalkmark In A Rainstorm era and her own nod to Tears For Fears classic ‘The Working Hour’ – Midnight View was specifically written with the same saxophonist in mind: Mel Collins, who plays stunning solos on the aforementioned tracks and is featured prominently on both.

“Part of me deciding to write a concept album where I’m the storyteller, means, like any good fairytale, it has a happy-ever-after” explains Crane. “A closing moment of warmth, a counterbalance to the spectral Irish folk song at the beginning, where we descended to the spirit world together. It reflects through these two musical bookends, the real-life crazy journey emotionally that I was strapped in to for the duration of writing and recording this album. Beginning where I was in search of something — ending where I am finally seeing, feeling and tasting the beauty of life again through simple, nocturnal pleasures“.

“As a perpetual night-owl, my mind is most alive and inspiration most fertile when the world is sleeping. I wrote Midnight View to close the storybook; it’s reflected in the lyrics, the way that I sing them, the warmth and prominence of Mel Collins’ saxophone — bringing the stories on the album to what I feel is a satisfying and rather epic conclusion, and closing the narrative arc on my album. My chosen track listing is carefully placed — the album begins with Folk and my Irish heritage, and ends in progressive, night-time jazz. Progressively a tonal shift occurs, with the first appearance of Mel’s playing, marking the turning point for the listener. I really love Tears For Fears’ ‘The Working Hour’, Mel plays a blinder on that song, so I was determined to give him the floor here too — that opening solo of his really sets the tone throughout.  This is me raising a martini glass to the whole cathartic journey of writing, producing, arranging and composing these songs that make up Netherworld, and to all the other children of the night, like me, who come alive at witching hour.“

For Midnight View, Crane is joined once again by Tony Levin (John Lennon, Peter Gabriel, King Crimson) on bass and Gary Husband (John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension, Allan Holdsworth) on drums, with lead guitar and backing vocals handled by Jakko M. Jakszyk (King Crimson), in addition to Collins himself, who takes the latter half of Crane’s storybook album to its darkly lit, progressive jazz conclusion.

Stream Midnight View AT THIS LOCATION

Midnight View is culled from Netherworld, which marks a considerable step onward from the territory that Crane explored on her debut LP Deep Blue, crafting musical landscapes filled with magic and beauty, hallucinatory and intoxicating, merging sound into experience while diffusing a supernatural, exotic vibe. Points of reference call for comparison to Kate Bush, St. Vincent, Sarah McLachlan, Cocteau Twins, the works of Angela Carter, The Brothers Grimm and ethereal films like The Company of Wolves, and Pan’s Labyrinth and the use of magical realism as a cypher for real-life experience.

“Before writing Netherworld I knew I wanted my songwriting to have an integrity and honesty I’ve previously skirted around, even if that meant facing truths and daring to show vulnerability,” Crane offers. “‘Dance With The Devil’ sets up the album with my opening Irish folk song; beginning with storytelling. I see the song as a statement of intent both lyrically and musically. The music draws on my lifelong adoration of Irish folklore and the poets I grew up reading. In relating to myself I also relate deeply to where I grew up, for better and indeed, for worse. William Butler Yeats summed it up wonderfully when he said, “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy“.”

“Escapism, I think, is made all the more necessary or appealing when there are things in our ‘real world’ that we maybe shy away from, including things within ourselves, In my case, I certainly recognise a part of me that romanticises that which is bad for me. The moth to the flame. It can be dangerous to be so fatalistic. It’s forced me to think about nature versus nurture a lot in recent years — how much of that stems from an incident in my childhood related to the conflict where I grew up in Northern Ireland, and how much of it is just my nature? I knew that without confronting that part of myself I could never really get away from it.“

In a recent interview with broadcaster Robin Ince at the Dolby Screening Room in London, Crane elaborated further about how the lyric-writing process for Netherworld resulted in an unlocking of childhood trauma and a journey of healing, which may never have happened without the song-writing direction she chose to pursue for the project.

“So I started out writing an album and the general concept was childhood to adulthood, and I guess whenever you put a magnifying glass on your memories from your childhood, not all of them are going to be the things you want to remember. I was maybe three or four songs into Netherworld, and I accidentally uncovered some repressed trauma – some pretty severe repressed trauma”.

“When I was seven years old, I was alone at home. It was late and it was dark and the house was raided, basically, by masked paramilitaries. And I was interrogated at gunpoint as a child. And that happened, and it just wasn’t really talked about or dealt with by the adults in my life, so it became repressed, and I think I’d sort of been searching myself for why I had these self-destructive and fatalistic tendencies – ‘why I’m I like this? Why am I such a fuckhead?’  

‘Oh!  It’s trauma – it’s buried trauma.’  During the process of writing Netherworld, I realised that was there, and I sought counselling in Northern Ireland for victims of The Conflict, basically, people who are victims of trauma and paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland”.  

“I went pretty deep down the spiral after that, you know, after that discovery, and during the counselling. I think one of the darkest hours on the album is Bete Noire. That was written during that time, it was a pretty dark time and it definitely coloured the whole record, but during that I think the catharsis for me was discovering this, because I’m writing my album from childhood to adulthood; had I not done that, had I taken a completely different path thematically, that just wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have discovered this, I wouldn’t have went through healing, I wouldn’t be in a better place now, you know, and the nice bonus is that I’ve created some art that I can feel proud of.   So it was a pretty huge discovery for me…  But it’s part of the whole process. You know, I feel I’m not ‘what” happened to me – like many victims of childhood trauma or trauma in their lives. I’m a whole person and, you know, I’m good. I’m doing good”

On June 21st Louise Patricia Crane will release her sophomore album, Netherworld, produced by Crane herself via her own Peculiar Doll label.

A singer-songwriter whose work draws on a wide range of musical and magical influences, to produce a sound that is undeniably her own. From guitar-driven ’70s progressive rock & blues, through to ’90s avant-garde dream pop, Crane seamlessly weaves it all into her own unique, alluring spell.

Steadfast in intent and rich in emotion, the record adapts a forest to firmament trajectory as backdrop for a shimmering journey of storytelling and revelation. ‘Netherworld’ will see release on double gatefold vinyl LP, CD/DVD Digibook (featuring a 5.1 mix by Jakko M. Jakszyk who also holds a co-production credit) and deluxe limited boxset editions.

Pre-order ‘Netherworld’ at this location.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Crane is known for her singular swirl of romantic escapism and dreamlike progressive rock. Beginning her career in music fronting gothic rock band Solemn Novena in 2006, with whom she gained a small following. In 2016 she joined The Eden House, which included members of Fields of the Nephilim, and debuted on the group’s 2017 album ‘Songs for the Broken Ones’. Striding out on her own and creating her own record label Peculiar Doll, and making her solo debut in 2020, with the album ‘Deep Blue’ which included contributions from progressive rock veterans Ian Anderson, the aforementioned Jakszyk, Kate Bush & Lorenna McKinnit collaborator Danny Thompson and Kyuss bassist Scott Reeder.

In the United Kingdom, ‘Deep Blue’ entered the Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart at number 8, and the Official Independent Albums Chart at number 20. At the end of 2020, Crane ranked number 5 in Prog’s Readers’ Poll of the Best Female Vocalists, with journalist Dom Lawson dubbing her “The new queen of psychedelic prog”.

In realising these romantic and expansive visions, Louise not only wrote or co-wrote the entire album, but arranged, produced it and played a wide variety of instruments, including guitars, keyboard, piano, harpsichord, mellotron, bass guitar, and EBow, along with collating found sounds and adding percussion. As on her debut, Jakszyk brandishes fiery, mellifluous solo guitar work, and contributing backing vocals, keyboards and co-production. Flute soliloquies by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson and saxophone courtesy of King Crimson’s Mel Collins provide considerable depth while Shir-Ran Yinon (New Model Army, Eluveitie) returns as a collaborator providing violin and viola across the stylistic expanse of the album. The rhythm section for the lion’s share of the record consists of the dream team of Tony Levin (John Lennon, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) and Gary Husband (John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Allan Holdsworth) with Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo, Steven Wilson) stepping in on bass for ‘Dance With The Devil’ and upright bass on ‘Long Kiss Goodnight’.

Amidst this class of company, Louise’s voice and vision is never remotely overshadowed; the talents on offer serving to make the backdrop to her songs still more vivid, sharp and intense.

As if Hammer Horror reimagined Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon in a surrealist dreamworld — the video for previous single Dance With The Devil marks Louise Patricia Crane‘s stunning directorial debut that bewitches and befits the lavish, panoramic scope she envisions musically throughout Netherworld. Descending to a twilit world echoing the poets, wraiths and legends of Irish gothic folklore; who better than Crane herself to guide us there. Exploring hedonistic self-destruction, Dance With The Devil is the battle we have with the darker parts of our own psyche.

A deeply nostalgic reverie, Louise Patricia Crane invites us to the place where her real-life childhood dreams were discovered and imagination set ablaze. Once again directed by Crane herself, the video for Celestial Dust is set, fittingly, in the 1930’s Art Deco Strand cinema from her native East Belfast, where she pays homage to the faraway detached lives and loves of movie starlets played out on the silver screen. Other worlds projected and performed behind red velvet curtains, a tale of a daydreaming projectionist stepping in to another dazzling world for a time. Celestial Dust pays homage to the cold glamour and romantics of Old Hollywood, with a touch of David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ dark surrealist allure. The stars of the screen versus the stars in the cosmos, and the unattainable essence of both distant worlds.