Silver Movie is the solo project of singer-songwriter Matt Ray, a native New Yorker currently based in Los Angeles. Ray's sound exists in its own dimension, best described as a warped hybrid of indie rock and folk inspired by the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, Suicide, and Broadcast.
Today, Silver Movie release their new track "Jackson Pollock's House," and gorgeous accompanying video, shot on 16mm film. Ray tells Foxes Magazine, "[Director] Laura [Lynn Petrick] and I shared a mutual appreciation for films like 'Grey Gardens' and 'Permanent Vacation.' She thought Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Red Desert' would be a cool reference and I loved it so I also told her to check out Victor Erice's 'Spirit of the Beehive.' She kind of mixed all of these references together and came up with a great concept."
"In times of desperation, I fought to burn this city down," he sings as the opening lines of Jackson Pollock's House. Ray elaborates "More often than not, songwriting for me is like an exploration of my subconscious. I've never really been able to sit down and write a song about a specific topic in the traditional sense the way people like Woody Guthrie or Joe Strummer could. Jackson Pollock's House is sort of like a few different vignettes tied together by an overarching theme of isolation."
Silver Movie's debut album Youth Revue was recorded over a two week period during the winter of 2020 in a basement studio near the Hollywood Reservoir. Most of the songs on the album were written during the fall of 2019, which had been a particularly isolating year for Ray. He had recently moved to LA and found himself drifting, working at a warehouse on the city's east side while trying to figure out a path in life. He writes: "The years leading up to my move had felt like a dark forest full of wrong turns, trap doors, and funhouse mirrors. By the time I got to LA I was exhausted and at the mercy of my own anxiety. I was kind of losing my mind. Fortunately late that summer I got back into writing songs and read about Kintsugi- The Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with precious metals. I was enamored with the idea of embracing imperfections instead of hiding them, and felt that similar repairs were needed in my own life. This concept proved to be an inspiration for my songwriting and ended up having a big influence on the album's production. Shortly before recording began I wrote the "Sonic Kintsugi" manifesto which explained everything I was trying to achieve on the album. I basically wanted to deliberately "break" songs and put them back together. I sent the manifesto to a number of musicians involved and though I'm not sure that everyone read it, we ended up making a pretty solid record. I named the album Youth Revue because I wanted the sequencing to move like acts in a play, loosely inspired by experiences in my own life."
Youth Revue features a small ensemble of backing musicians including the local LA psych-rock trio Triptides. Much of the album was recorded live, with overdubs punched in towards the end of the sessions. Shortly before going into the studio, Ray obsessively listened to The Beatles' White Album demos, became immersed in musique concrète, and took production notes from renowned producer Joe Boyd's memoir White Bicycles.
