Roy Moller’s second album of 2014, his fifth to date, is rush-released on Sunday 10th August 2014. It follows hot on the heels of his acclaimed Stereogram release One Domino. My Week Beats Your Year blends meditations on Lou Reed’s life and music and Roy’s hometown of Edinburgh.
Mainly recorded over Christmas 2013, after Roy was asked to perform a Lou Reed-themed show at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, the album takes its cue from Reed & John Cale’s Songs for Drella, a eulogy for Andy Warhol.
On a spring Sunday evening, in 1979, David Bowie guested as a DJ on Radio One. On the show he played Sweet Jane by the Velvet Underground. A 15-year-old Roy Moller’s universe was forever changed. My Week Beats Your Year celebrates this and the way the music of Lou and the Velvets soundtracked Roy’s formative years in Leith and Edinburgh.
The gritty Don’t Understand and the terse Captivity are direct and engaging New York rockers. Capital City relocates Songs For Drella’s Small Town, to Edinburgh, while Names Out The Hat recalls Moller’s period as a Christmas postie listening to the Velvet Underground while he delivered the early morning mail.
The ruminative, jazz-inflected Reality takes its cue from Roy witnessing the historic pair of Velvet Underground reunion concerts at the Playhouse, Edinburgh, just a mile from the house where he grew up and heard the Velvets for the first time.
Under The Radar takes a bittersweet look at Moller’s underground years as an unknown performer while Your Week Beats My Year delivers a forthright glimpse into its narrator’s adolescent awkwardness.
Much more than a treatise on fandom or the career of a rock star,
My Week Beats Your Year is shot through with warm humour and a frank exploration of its creator’s personal history.