(photo courtesy Lovefool Productions)
Celene Ramadan is never one to stay idle for long. Better known as the one-woman David Lynch soundtrack that is Prom Queen, she’s done a little of everything; even metamorphosing into a hippity-hoppity giant rabbit Gong Show contestant named Snax, no less.
Now, Ramadan’s dusted off another persona: Leeni, synth-pop thrush. Leeni gives Ramadan another avenue for imaginative, distinctive covers of familiar songs. Lovefool, Leeni’s new EP, scoops up five tracks that figured strongly on Baz Luhrmann’s classic Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, and transforms ’em into glacially-captivating synthesized walls of sound.
Garbage’s “#1 Crush” morphs into industrial-tinged, black eyelinered synth-rock. “Angel,” the plaintive Gavin Friday love song, floats heady and lighter than air, a robot-funk jam that sports some serious baby-making plastic soul.
(photo courtesy Lovefool Productions)
The title track, a cover of the Cardigans alt-pop classic, feels like a girl group comprised of android facsimiles of ABBA. Leeni’s singing on Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host” swings with a sense of heady, oddball sensuality that the original doesn’t really explore. And Des’ree’s “Kissing You” becomes a spectral David Lynch fever dream, as fronted by Leslie Gore.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Artist Home is proud to showcase the Lovefool EP, and the companion video to its title track.
They’re wonderfully strange continuations of the David Lynch-meets-bubblegum-aesthetic that’s become a key component of Celene Ramadan’s work with Prom Queen. And come to think of it, if Prom Queen were slinging hash in some retro-noir diner, this is the music that’d be crackling and purring its way out of the transistor radio in the kitchen. In other words, it’s another lush, witty, fetchingly dark burst of pure Celene Ramadan-crafted escapism. Drink deep.
LEENI: Lovefool from Leeni on Vimeo.
