biographical info
First launched at the New Forms Festival three years ago, Thomas Anselmi's multi-media project MIRROR is now releasing an album of music. MIRROR’s songs are the soundtrack to immersive multi-performer shows that combine electronic pop music with theatricality and live video production.
MIRROR introduces chanteuse Laure-Elaine and teen actress Frances Lawson who perform alongside a star-studded cast of collaborators – including Depeche Mode front man Dave Gahan, who sings “Nostalgia,” and Andy Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro (Trash, Heat) who co-wrote and performs a monologue on “City Lights.”
Produced by Vincent Jones, the album also features guitarist Knox Chandler (Siouxsie And The Banshees, Pyschedelic Furs), and legendary Bowie pianist Mike Garson.
The aesthetic of MIRROR is deeply rooted in the sounds and sights of erotic art and cinema. One can hear in the music the influence of film composers such as Francis Lai (Love Story, Bilitis) and Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet). The use of video is both strange and familiar, playing on our nostalgia for the iconic imagery of classic Hollywood and the stagey drama of television variety shows.
A new direction for the pop spectacle, MIRROR uses live and recorded media to create a kind of pyschosexual postmodern cabaret. By embracing the artificial and sentimental, MIRROR reflects the transitory, spectacular world of endless commodities, sex, advertising, and tabloid violence. Ballads of love and longing disguise the themes of cultural decay and apocalypse.
lineup
Thomas Anselmi Principal / Composer
influences
David Lynch
Francis Lai
Angelo Badalamenti
Depeche Mode