New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Today, Sally Potter shares "Black and White Badge," the latest preview of her debut album Pink Bikini, set to release on July 14. Renowned for her exceptional talent as an award-winning film director, with notable works including the Oscar-nominated Orlando (1992), The Party (2017), and The Roads Not Taken (2020), Potter explains that Pink Bikini "chronicles some of the key moments of the turbulent female years of transition from childhood to young adulthood that I experienced growing up in the 1960s in London."
"Black and White Badge" tells the story of a young girl who is deeply concerned about the threat of nuclear apocalypse. She dreams of a world without violence and destruction but is haunted by the fear of the bomb falling. Performed in the manner of a 60s yé-yé ballad, it's a masterful juxtaposition of a child's naivete and the very real dangers of a world on the brink — an interplay that repeats itself in the 21st century as children learn about the threat to their planet from climate change.
Earlier this month, Potter released the album's lead single and title track "Pink Bikini" which draws on the freewheeling spirit of her musical legacy and the 'tell all' nature of the album as a whole.
Says Potter: "This song is based on actual events. When I was 16, I really did see a pink bikini in a shop window on the way to
Victoria Station... Later, in the South of France, badly sunburned in my fruitless attempt to get a tan, I went to the local disco and afterwards "lay on the evening sand" with a French boy. It seemed romantic but led to trouble and despair as I experienced the cruel double standards of the time."
On Pink Bikini, Potter's song-writing talents are quickly evident — one hears shades of Leonard Cohen, Françoise Hardy, Scott Walker, Marianne Faithfull and even more modern voices from Pete Doherty to Weyes Blood. While she's accompanied by an assortment of collaborators — including guitarist extraordinaire Fred Frith (Robert Wyatt, Brian Eno), whose uniquely haunting sound has appeared on nearly all of Potter's films from Orlando onwards — the vision is distinctively hers.
Sally Potter's films have won over forty international awards and received BAFTA and Academy Award nominations. Her 1992 breakthrough Orlando(1992) an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's classic novel starring Tilda Swinton, was followed by The Tango Lesson (1996), The Man Who Cried (2000), Yes(2004), Rage (2009), Ginger & Rosa (2012), The Party (2017), and The Roads Not Taken (2020). Last
September her short film Look At Me, starring Chris Rock and Javier Bardem, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last September. She was awarded an OBE in 2012 and her book Naked Cinema - Working with Actors is published by Faber & Faber. Her soundtrack albums have been released by major labels including Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammaphon, and Milan. You can listen to examples of her music for filmshere.
Potter had a life in music that predates her work as a composer for film. As a voice in the avant-garde scene of the late 1970s she was a member of the ground-breaking group FIG (Feminist Improvising Group) with whom she toured extensively in Europe. She also performed with
Lindsay Cooper's Film
Music Orchestra and collaborated (as lyricist) with her on the song cycle OH MOSCOW, performing in the USSR and East Berlin in 1989, before the wall came down. From the 1990s Sally moved away from improvised music and focused on the precisely structured scores for her films.
Pink Bikini Tracklisting:
Mama
Ginger Curls
Black and White Badge
Army of Teens
Hymn
Ghosts
Black Mascara
Flames
Pink Bikini
The Secret
One Day
Dance Girl Dance
Album Credits
Music & Lyrics by Sally Potter
Lead Guitar & Electric Bass: Fred Frith
Drums & Percussion: Paul Clarvis
Upright Bass: Misha Mullov-Abbado
Keyboards: Sally Potter
Acoustic Guitar:
Laura Snowden
Acoustic Guitar: Giacomo Susani
Harp: Hattie Webb
Album Recorded at Jankowski SoundFabrik (Germany) and The Premises (London)
Engineering & Mixing by
Peter Hardt
Vocal Engineering by Marie Ormes
Additional Mixing & Pre-Mastering by
Marta Salogni
Mastered by Matt Colton
