Electronic rock artist Blue Stahli is one of the most exciting names in the music world today. Utilizing sharp and extremely tight production along with addictive and exhilarating music, he’s carved a place in the industry as a dangerously clever musician, able to craft commercial albums but also compose teaser and trailer cues for some of the biggest titles in Hollywood.
Now, four years after his last album that featured vocals, Stahli is back with The Devil, a 12-track album packed with some of the most energetic tracks you’ll hear all year.
To celebrate this release AND how close it came out to Halloween, we had Stahli compare each track on the album to a sci-fi/horror movie, although one action film did sneak into the mix. By comparing each song to a movie, you’ll get a feel for what’s coming at you and you’ll also have some interesting mental visuals to accompany you as you blast the album!
You can buy your copy of The Devil via FiXT.
1. “The Beginning” – X-Men: Days of Future Past
This one is the easiest to list an inspiration, because the first half of this track was literally written for the trailer (in addition to just going wild writing Blue Stahli songs for people to jam loudly in their car, I sometimes also write custom stuff for trailers). They needed an introduction track to work over the dramatic exposition, so the first minute of this song is what was made for the trailer. Watching the superheroes and giant robots that I saw in comics as a kid, in a huge movie, with my song playing was *the* most amazing feeling!
Later on, there was a suggestion by the label manager that I turn it into a full track, and so the big slamming war drums and warped bass synth + distorted cello came into play as a great way to act as the trailer to open up this album.
2. “Not Over Til We Say So (feat. Emma Anzai of Sick Puppies)” – Pandorum
You could pretty easily hotswap the selection for this one and Enemy back and forth because for the sake of atmosphere, I tend to mention Pandorum and Event Horizon in the same breath. But I can only choose one movie per song, so the claustrophobic sci-fi horror of Pandorum is your visual aide to this song. I love the hell out of the mix of sci-fi and horror, and something about space horror in particular (there’s a way they tend to be lit, that I love) was what filled my brain when writing this track. I adore the set pieces, lighting, and overall mood of this flick, and exploring the vastness and intricacy of what that ship would be is absolutely what I had in mind what building the musical elements.
3. “Armageddon” – Hardware
I. Love. This. Movie. “Hard” is how much. This is one of my most influential films of all time and is pretty much the warm-blanket comfort movie I can put on anytime. I wrote the music of this track to be my homage to the film. Director Richard Stanley directed music videos before features, so it’s natural that his first feature is just a perfect fusion of the worlds of film and music. The scavenger in the beginning is Carl McCoy from Fields of the Nephilim. Iggy Pop is the voice of “Angry Bob” the radio DJ who provides both exposition AND yelling. Lemmy from Motorhead is a badass take-no-shit cabbie. There’s Public Image, Ltd. and Ministry in the soundtrack. Visionary music video/short film director Chris Cunningham (“Rubber Johnny”, Aphex Twin’s “Come to Daddy” and “Windowlicker” videos as well as Bjork’s “All Is Full Of Love”, and more) worked on the robotics of the killer M.A.R.K. 13 robot. And features quick-cut footage that intercuts GWAR, archival stuff from Monte Cazazza and Survival Research Labs. So seeing this all in my impressionable years probably explains a lot.
With the exception of the sequenced modular synth you hear in the second verse and the bridge of Armageddon, I expressly used 90s rave samples and synths throughout (and I freaked the hell out when I discovered that I had a synth sample that was used in the score for the movie…I use that sucker right in the beginning to set the tone). Even using 90s rave breakbeats to really make this feel like a modernized version of a song that could appear on the soundtrack. Of course, back when I was watching the movie endless on VHS, bands I was listening to at the time were sampling the hell out of it, so this is also to capture the feel how that all resonated with me. The lyric video for Armageddon also features Hardware references in the wireframe displays and stacked static TV’s and monitor displays.
4. “Down In Flames” – Mad Max: Fury Road
Sure, my song may have been released on an EP a full two years before the film came out, but now when I’m listening and it hits the solo section in the bridge, all I want to be is the Doof Warrior strapped to a war party wall of rusted metal and speakers to send noise to the wasteland. Plus, nothing more perfectly exemplifies “Burn, baby, burn” than the awe-inspiring explosions of this movie.
5. “Enemy” – Event Horizon
I remember seeing this movie for the first time late one night on VHS. The extra electronic bits of score from Orbital and end credits song from The Prodigy really helped to show that electronic music can take on such a different added mood. Previously, I had only heard The Prodigy used for straight up action or club scene type stuff, but hearing “Funky Shit” at the end of the sci-fi horror chaos of this flick drilled it into my brain how cool chopped up samples, synths and beats mix with artistic tension. In ‘Enemy’ there’s a lot of sound-collage and rhythmic sampled fx that is meant to create the complex cinematic atmosphere of being inside a film like Event Horizon.
6. “Ready Aim Fire” – Replacement Killers
This is one where the trailer is just as equal an inspiration as the film itself. I first saw the movie in a dollar theater with a group of friends when it came out. That opening scene, complete with cityscape flyovers, amazing cinematography, and stylistic violence all set to The Crystal Method’s “Keep Hope Alive” just cemented a life path for me. That scene was the first time I had even heard The Crystal Method, and to have it paired so perfectly with expository artistic action had my jaw on the floor. Immediately after the movie, I raced home and stayed up all night programming breakbeats, and acid synths in a DOS tracker. That scene and feeling I had in the theater is something I’ve been writing to with many songs over many years. The main musical mantra of the approach to ‘The Devil’ album as a whole was “Fuck genres. Fuck chasing trends. And fuck the type of tastemaker gatekeepers who just want flavor of the minute. I’m just doing what I want, however I want”. So “Ready Aim Fire” was very decidedly me eschewing whatever happened to be going on in musical trends, and just going back to what made me happy and inspired. So enjoy the massive breakbeats, vinyl samples, chopped up guitars and atmospheric synths of this track. Pair with action scenes and nighttime cityscape flythroughs.