SISTERS OF MERCY CO-FOUNDER GARY MARX TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM THIS SEPTEMBER
September sees the release of a new album by Gary Marx. The man best known for co-founding The Sisters Of Mercy with Andrew Eldritch will release Red Planet Blue via Infrasons E.Y. Records, the eagerly awaited follow-up to 2024’s Green Ginger Jive.
The album is 72 minutes of music spread over four sides of vinyl. “Side one is the poppiest, side three is the most varied and adventurous, side four is the silliest, and side two has the most elephants,” states Gary.
It’s another collection of 70s inspired songs bursting at the seams with teenage dreams and interstellar themes.
“It’s bigger and bolder,” he explains. “I’ve thrown everything at it this time round, saxes, synths, sci-fi sound fx, stand-up….”
“It had to be 72 minutes long – I became a teenager in ’72, this album represents me closing the circle.”
The recording process was slightly different from the previous album, where some songs were written specifically for the guest singers involved. This time for Red Planet Blue, Marx recorded a finished version of every song before considering inviting anyone else to hop onboard. “I decided I only wanted to invite people to sing who were my age. I relaxed the rule slightly for the CD, but on the vinyl, I needed kids who would have been in my year’s intake at high school. That became my gang.”
“I wanted to make use of all the material I’d generated through the time of this project in some way.” That extended to using clips from interviews and dialogue from live shows…re-purpose, repair and recycle became a mantra of sorts and led to some surprising inclusions to make an album that found inspiration in a couple of unlikely places – The Who Sell Out, and A Wizard A True Star by Todd Rundgren.”
“The pirate radio aspect appealed to me from The Who album, and so I use a similar device to connect the main songs. With Todd, I liked the idea of not forcing every idea to be a 3 minute song, or even a song at all.”
Red Planet Blue harks back to and celebrates a bygone era of music and fashion, colour and pizazz that takes the listener on a lengthy but completely absorbing journey.
Look out for our forthcoming November issue when Blitzed will be speaking to Gary for an exclusive interview.
Red Planet Blue is released September 18th via infrasons e.y. records
pre-order the album here: https://garymarx.bandcamp.com/album/red-planet-blue
