The Colorist Orchestra & Howe Gelb have teamed up for a new LP called Not On The Map, due October 1 via Dangerbird Records. The collaboration seems fitting, with The Colorist Orchestra's penchant for reimaging others' songs combined with Gelb's prolific and diverse catalog of approximately 50 records. Labelmate Prieta Brown also appears in multiple songs on the new album while recording across the country in Iowa.
While the record itself isn't out for another two months or so, Scene Point Blank is pleased to debut the video to the new "Sweet Pretender," a song in which Brown's addition is especially notable.
The song contrarily explores grandoise arrangements and minimalism, blending soft and harsh tones seamlessly.
Brown adds some context about working with Gelb, who is a long-running friend.
This song came to me one day when I was playing electric guitar. The muse was very open to my abandonment issues and love addiction that day...the song came in very sudden-like and as soon as I sang it through a few times I imagined it as a duet. I figured out pretty quickly I would need Nick Cave or Howe Gelb to really deliver it "right". I mentioned the song to Howe once or twice, but a duet titled "Sweet Pretender" didn't get too much of an excited response...hahaha...but when I got the invitation to collaborate with Howe and The Colorist Orchestra I couldn't resist sending them a very rough demo of Sweet Pretender. Then, it seemed like almost instantaneously I received the TCO's sublime interpretation and arrangement! I was floored. In a flurry I sang some lines...and Howe responded across the miles. I had imagined it as a dark electric piece. How did the TCO make it dark and light at once? Now, when I hear it it sounds like how it must've meant to be.
Speaking to the Colorist Orchestra's approach, “We both like playing on elements that are not really instruments, stuff that is not really playable on a stage,” says Kobe Proesmans. “And we had this dream of, what if we take those elements and those sounds, and we write arrangements, and we create an orchestra that is actually capable of playing them within the structure of pop music.”
NOT ON THE MAP LP TRACK LISTING:
1. Counting On
2. Gentle on My Mind
3. Sometimes I Wish (feat. Pieta Brown)
4. Dr Goldman
5. Thyne Eyes
6. Sweet Pretender (feat. Pieta Brown)
7. Ruin Everything
8. Tarantula
9. More Exes
10. Not On The Map
THE COLORIST OPRCHESTRA & HOWE GELB
2021 EU TOUR DATES
6 Nov | Take Root Festival | Groningen, NL
8 Nov | NTGent (40jaar Democrazy) | Gent, BE
9 Nov | Paradiso | Amsterdam, NL
13 Nov | De Roma | Antwerp, BL
14 Nov | Opera | Lyon, FR
16 Nov | AB, Brussels | BE
