Could there be a better album than Gemma Ray’s Milk For Your Motors to transition us from the ice-cream brightness of summer to the chilly, moody, whiskey-soaked ides of fall? Definitely not. This killer follow-up to Gemma Ray’s equally strong Island Fire balances light and dark on a razor’s edge, that eerie interplay between the creepy and the mundane that David Lynch has been toiling in for decades.
In fact, much of Milk For Your Motors feels like something that could’ve easily soundtracked Twin Peaks had the timing been right. From the chain-gang clang of opener “The Wheel” to the mid-century swoon of “When I Kissed You” to the torch-lit slow jam “Out In The Rain,” Ray channels an avant-pop theatricality that slays precisely because it’s so wonderfully mixed up.
{http://soundcloud.com/gemma-ray/id-rather-go-blind}
Nick Cave? The influence is there. The Chiffons? Yep, all over the place. Even Alan Vega (Suicide) and Toby Dammit (Iggy and the Stooges/Swans) contribute a healthy dose of raucous angularity to the vibe.
In short, this record is an insanely great combo of Endless Summer and Blue Velvet. And it’s exactly what you need to offset—or maybe punctuate—all that end-of-summer despair. -Mollie Wells
Milk For Your Motors is out now on Bronzerat Records and is available on iTunes!
Image courtesy of Alisa Resnik.
