Russell originally made his name as Songwriter & Producer of Cult Artist Eleanor Rigby and in Influential Ska Band Ministry of Ska.
So far Psyckick Holiday have released two tracks comercially. They had two tracks ’A View to a Kill’ & ’The James Bond theme’ Bond fans singled these tracks out as the outstanding tracks on the Album ’The Themes Bond...James Bond’ and bot tracks are currently best sellers at Itunes.
Russell’s first stab at perfecting the unique ’Pop Noir’ music resulted in two albums and 5 singles with the group ‘Box Office Poison’ (See friend link to see and hear more).The releases were popular amongst students where the singles were often number one on student radio charts and underground mags and fanzine were quick to tout some tracks not just best of the year but of a whole decade. (Such a lot to live up to) (Students are often open to new stuff before it becomes mainstream) However this music stayed underground but gradually trickled into the mainstream via groups Like Goldfrapp and Mono (Particularly those acts debut albums..not so much their newer releases). Hear those and hear B.O.P stuff from 3 years before those releases and you see what the score is.
As the new millennium hit it was common to see bands advertising to form bands to do this style of music, however many didn’t quite perfect it. Some thought Punk Jazz attitude was to play punk and jazz music!!!!.
No, attitude is the key word. Punk means to just get up and do it and Jazz is the most improvised music genre. The innovative production (& unique Punk cello sound) is what adds to the flavour of the band but this has been transferred to many bands Russell produces. Think atmospheric and sexy and filmic.
The songs are also a key to the style with each song its like being thrown into a 3-minute film epic and feel like they have actually tasted the experience of what the song is all about. (Fancy feeling like a homeless person for 3 minutes...check out Backstreet Boulevard by B.O.P) Some acts have grasped some things other havent got it.
With so many acts starting to get into this music genre around the turn of the Century Misty said B.O.P should change their band name to ‘Pop Noir’ because of inventing this music genre. So in 2001 they changed thier name to ’Pop Noir’ releasing the track ‘Alien’ through FLR/Universal but after talking a break and do other Artistic endeavours plus get a new line up together another band seemed to have blagged the name. It was decided rather that battle over a name they would let the music do the talking and changed the name to Psykick Holiday for the new material they had recorded. So accept no imitators ’Psykick Holiday’ are the definitive exponents of Pop Noir style music.Collaborators on this new album include Top 10 hit Artist ’Pop’ from Japan. After solo success in Japan and writing songs for top selling Japanese artist Ayumi Hamasaki as well a remixing for the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Yellow Magic Orchestra he considered the UK the true home of groundbreaking music and wanted to be part of it and in Psykick Holiday he found just what he was looking for and a productive songwriting partnership with Russell resulted in 4 outstanding songs for the new album.
We would also like to mention a few of the other guest collaborators on this album.
Apart From Russell the main Lead Vocalist featured is Paulyna, with other guest Vocalists being Natasha, & Nicola Taylor with one track a piece.
On Sax Darren Stamate and Trumpet David Riddell and Drum On the James Bond tracks is Dan Deavin.
We welcome any feedback on the music.
The Band have already been offered record deals in some teritories but still need to secure deals on others. So If you are a record Label or Publisher excited by the music please get in touch.
