Gold Dime, aka Andrya Ambro of Talk Normal, released their third album, No More Blue Skies, this week via Liars frontman Angus Andrew’s No Gold label. An album like this makes sense in Liars’ universe — it sounds huge, with Ambro wailing over noisy, widescreen rock backing. The album features Ian Douglas-Moore on bass and vocals, Brendan Wimick on guitar, plus Jeff Tobias (sax), Jessica Pavone (strings), and Kate Mohanty (alto sax). No More Blue Skies is a high-drama, intense buckle-yourself-in thrill ride and you can listen to the album below.
We asked Andrya to tell us more about the album and they gave us a list of 10 inspirations, including Nina Simone, Eurythmics, The Walker Brothers, Mandy Indiana, Japanese yakuza noir films and more. Andrya correlates it with songs from the album so this is a very interesting, informative read. Check that out below.
Gold Dime – 10 Influences Behind ‘No More Blue Skies’
1) “4/4 In Leather” by Eurythmics. The song was a bonus live track on their debut album In The Garden (definitely my favorite Eurythmics record). In general this track feels more propulsive dark wave than the other songs on that debut. The drum machine programming drives the whole thing but it was mostly the vocal stylings of Annie Lennox that found their way into my subconsciousness – those vocals being an amalgamation of something desperately wanted, that’s simultaneously laughing in your face. Used so many of these ideas in our song “Wasted Wanted.”
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2) The party train dancers from Mike Kelley’s Day is Done – a grandiose installation piece that focused on performance tropes and incorporated many hours of video. There are said to be 365 videos, and throughout the videos, three party train dancers weave in and out of many scenes – like a campy through-line. Although the whole thing is pretty outrageous and campy. For a long time I’d been meaning to use some version of these dancers in a video of my own. Fortunately I convinced Joe Wakeman, who directed our video for “Wasted Wanted,” to let me use a more austere version of the party train dancers. Most musicians know Mike Kelley as the artist responsible for Sonic Youth’s Dirty cover/album art. Here’s a short excerpt of the Day is Done train dancers:
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3) A drum beat by Tcheser Holmes of Irreversible Entanglements. I was witnessing, and mixing, a show IE played at The Kitchen years ago. Hearing this pretty motivating and unrelenting 6/8 drum beat coming from Tcheser, immediately I recorded the song on my phone and played drums to it often. I made it my own eventually and used it in our song “Denise.” This might be one of my favorite things to do – imitate beats and make them my own. Never was able to find a more professionally recorded version of the IE song/beat but here’s “Open The Gates”:
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4) The poetry of Kate Mohanty. Kate is mostly known as an experimental improv alto sax player from NYC. For our song “Ronnie Desperation,” the lyrics were a sister poem to Kate’s poem “Johnny Panic” (yes this references Sylvia Plath’s short story Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams). Kate’s dark and honest. I gravitate to both these things.
5) Anne Clarke. It surprises me how few of my friends know Anne’s work. Basically Anne did brooding poetry over dark synth soundscapes that take you to the edge of the apocalypse. Sometimes the drama of it all makes me laugh out loud. She’s cutthroat. We covered her song “All We Have To Be Thankful For” on the first Gold Dime album but her words and spirit continue to be an inspiration. Here’s another favorite “Lover’s Audition”:
6) “The Electrician” by The Walker Brothers. I always revisit this bleak noir masterpiece for inspiration. It is truly wild they chose this song as a single let alone put it on Nite Flights with all those other straight groovy numbers. “The Electrician” (supposedly about a sadistic CIA torturer) was unsettling, beautiful and compositionally fearless, and of course felt like the shape of Scott Walker to come. Our songs “We Lose Again” and “Ronnie Desperation” definitely bend towards the gothic spirit of “The Electrician,” and I continue to be moved by Walker’s singular imagination behind the arrangement and orchestrations on this.
7) The movie Branded To Kill. This is a ‘60s Japanese noir mob (yakuza) film where a hitman botches a job and then the “Number One Killer” is hunting him down. It was essentially a bizarre B movie but the cinematography and editing are striking. At one point an ex-assassin is attempting to confront another assassin in an ambush scenario. In his pursuit he runs down a long back lit tunnel screaming. This still of him running and screaming was the inspiration for the No More Blue Skies album cover. Motion and emotion in a tunnel. I can’t find the clip on youtube. But here’s the trailer for the film
8) “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone. This song always levels me, especially when she gets to the first “Power” chorus. Absolutely love the hi hat work but the lyrics specifically haunt me. Had this song rattling around in my head when I wrote our song “Please Not Today.” Although none of the original lyrics that lent themselves out to more of a “Sinnerman” vibe really survived, except for the title “please not today.” Though I do think something about the theme of the desperate sinner man attempting to hide from their “sins”/the world kind of stuck around.
9) “Gli Imboscati” by Egisto Macchi. Love the use of percussion in this piece. The drums are minimal and repetitive, and by minimal I mean there are two drums that seesaw back and forth on quarter notes throughout the whole song. This choice grounds the music, acting like a guiding light for the rest of the ensemble, and simultaneously feels like a menacing reality. Inspired, I put this idea into use for our song “Wasted Wanted.” And I first heard this piece, as well as about Macchi himself, randomly through Bryce’s WFMU show. Macchi was an Italian avant-garde composer and a contemporary of Ennio Morricone. His other piece “La favola del lupo” is a deep favorite. But here is “Gli Imboscati”:
10) “Bottle Episode” by Mandy, Indiana. This song was off their 2021 EP. Loved how they used acoustic room recordings (like you could hear the drums in a vast cold room) mixed with more direct harsh guitar and noise. Yes people do this all the time but with this song it’s more noticeable and I think effective. This makes the mix feel more dimensional and simultaneously allows it to maintain its in-your-face primal vibe. Totally employed that on our song “We Lose Again “ in a few passages. And of course their sounds in general are inspiring.
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Gold Dime are on tour now for No More Blue Skies and wrap things up at NYC’s TV Eye on November 2 with Channel Vessel, and a DJ set from Pharmakon. Here are all the dates:
Gold Dime – 2023 Tour Dates
Oct 20 – Baltimore, MD @ Normals Books w/ Albert & Christian + Aphelion
Oct 21 – DC, @ Back Alley Theater w/ Clear Channel + Muscle
Oct 23 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Desperate Annie’s – via Super Dark Collective w/ Evil Sword + Blood 3
Oct 28 – Philadelphia, PA – @ Little Red Library w/ Ceiba + Powerhouse of the Cell
Oct 29 – Richmond, VA – @ Banditos w/ Child Abuse + Bleeders
Oct 30 – Durham, NC – @ Duke Coffeehouse w/ Chanelle Allesandre
Nov 2 – Queens, NY – @ TV Eye w/ Channel Vessel, DJ Pharmakon + more TBA