OTR: Booth & the Bad Angel - Booth & the Bad Angel

I purchased this CD a few years back for $3.99 from CD Warehouse and, like many other discs I purchased on the cheap out of curiosity, promptly forget to listen to it. No time like the present to catch up on such things, right?

Tim Booth was the lead singer of James while Angelo Badalamenti is a classically trained musician who made his name composing music for films, many of which were directed by David Lynch. Notably, much of Badalamenti's work for Twin Peaks was sampled by techno artists including Moby and Apoptyma Berzerk. To surmise, Badalamenti is to Lynch what Danny Elfman is to Tim Burton.

The one-off collaboration of Booth & the Bad Angel came about due to a comment by Booth on the UK television programme Friday Night At The Dome. The reason for the show itself was to enable contemporary musicians to collaborate with their heroes; Booth mentioned Badalamenti and four years later, in 1996, the two had produced an album (which also featured Suede guitarist Bernard Butler).

Badalamenti's trademark haunting surrealistic quirkiness is all over this album, but when combined with Booth's indie pop sensibilities, we get something yet even more interesting and different. There are a lot of textures and moods to explore on this disc and I should have given it a listen much sooner.

After this collaboration, Booth returned to James and the band released Whiplash (1997). Meanwhile, Badalamenti scored The City of Lost Children (1996).

Bettie Page dead at 85

Obituary from the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES – Bettie Page, a 1950s pinup model who helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, has died. She was 85.

Her agent Mark Roesler says Page died Thursday night at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a heart attack nine days ago. He says she never regained consciousness.

Page attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls across the country. Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

Roesler says Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released when she suffered the heart attack Dec. 2.