The Real Tuesday Weld is British one-man team Steven Coates. Initially a visual artist, he borrowed the name of ’60s cult actress Weld after a dream and proceeded to create cabaret-inspired beats. I, Lucifer is his second album, preceded by an unlikely, quirky dancefloor hit, “Bathtime in Clerkenwell.” A favorite with tastemakers Groove Armada and Fatboy Slim, that tune is not, however, indicative of the tracks collected here.
Lucifer is named after — and conceived as the soundtrack to — the darkly comedic Glen Duncan novel of the same name. Though the book’s concept involves the devil spending time without sinning in a human body as a chance for redemption, Lucifer the album is a seductive collection of love songs. Along the lines of Serge Gainsbourg (or, more currently, Gavin Friday), there’s a whimsical quality and drunken sophistication to Coates’ ultra-cool whispered delivery. The brushed drums on “One More Chance” (featuring jazz crooner Pinkie Maclure) balance against the French-sung “La Bête et la Belle” (bolstered by French vocalist David Guez), which sounds disturbingly as if it’s borrowing the melody line from Oasis’ “She’s Electric.” Wonderfully cinematic, I, Lucifer delicately takes lounge-centric elements of the past and turns them into an intricate beat-laden affair for the future.
