Miranda Lee Richards
Existential Beast

The documentary film 'Dig!' (awarded at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004) by Ondi Timoner played a crucial role in spreading the music of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Besides, that of the Dandy Warhols, of course.

As is well known, the documentary, co-produced with Ondi's brother, David Timoner, covers seven years of the lives of the two neo-psychedelic bands and aimed to detail their careers and interactions and differences, particularly focusing on the two frontmen Courtney Taylor (Dandy Warhols) and Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre).

From the documentary emerges a very negative portrait of the latter, so much so that Anton Newcombe himself has repeatedly described 'Dig!' as pure fiction or simply 'bullshit', and has always wanted to distance his image from the one portrayed in Ondi Timoner's work, which presents Anton as an extreme character, devoted to an excessive lifestyle and excessive consumption of drugs and alcohol, ultimately comparing him with the success of the Dandys (especially after the boom of the single 'Bohemian Like You') almost as a kind of failure. All this without giving a central role to what truly matters about Anton Newcombe and his music, that is, his incredible artistic and musical talent which is primarily recognized by Courtney Taylor, who beyond what might appear in the documentary, is still a great friend of Anton today.

In one of the documentary's sections, Ondi Timoner, aiming to portray Anton as an eternal unfulfilled, not only highlights the success of the Dandys but also virtually anyone who over the years (until 2004) played with or around the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Among these, just to mention a few, Bobby Hecksher of Warlocks, Peter Hayes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and specifically Miranda Lee Richards.

Born in San Francisco and raised from childhood in an environment influenced by what was called the 'summer of love', Miranda Lee Richards was indeed somewhat discovered by Anton Newcombe, becoming a stable part of the band for a brief period from 'Give It Back' to 'Bringing It All Back Home Again' to 'Strung Out In Heaven' before releasing her first solo album 'The Herethereafter' (Virgin Records, 2001).

Since then, her career has developed autonomously, and Miranda has become an established and recognized figure in American psychedelic folk music, even internationally.

Her latest album is titled 'Existential Beast' and was released on Invisible Hands Music last June 16. The album was recorded in Los Angeles with producer Rick Parker (mainly known for being the historic producer of BRMC) and was preceded by the single 'Lucid I Would Dream', a psychedelic folk ballad that adopts certain imaginations of Marc Bolan and which was described by Miranda herself as a conversation with her subconscious and the result of some experimentation on 'lucid dreaming' based probably on the theories of Alejandro Jodorowsky, who, as is known, has in fact dedicated studies and entire literary and surrealist and in some ways also scientific divulgation works to the topic.

The album, however, would primarily be inspired by political themes and evidently the result of considerations on the current situation in the United States and the rest of the world. It is the title of the album itself that refers to the most primary instincts of the human being and that of survival which is characteristic of every animal which as such is willing to overcome every possible obstacle: fear, competition, and sexuality, to achieve this primary objective which, however, at the same time, in such a primitive form, actually constitutes something merely individual.

But Miranda wrote some of the songs even before the outcome of the American elections, as if to imply in any case not that she had foreseen the election of Donald Trump and the authoritarian and ultra-conservative drift of the US governmental establishment, but that her reflections concern political and social themes that are evidently central to today's society: racism and materialism, sexism.

The album alternates between dreamlike and evocative folk and country ballads like the already mentioned 'Lucid I Would Dream', then 'Ashes and Seeds', 'The Wildwood', 'Autumn Song', the bucolic and pastoral 'Oh Raven' and 'Back To Source', which is very interesting for its experimentation in the use of voice and choirs.

Other tracks, on the other hand, are more rock like the radio-friendly 'On The Outside of Heaven' or 'Golden Gate' which directly refers to the psychedelia of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and in some final instrumental parts makes one think of the contaminations of the Goat's sound. The title track 'Existential Beast' is fundamentally built on the use of an organ with a typical vintage sound from the sixties-seventies and orchestral arrangements worthy of the most successful episodes of Sufjan Stevens' discography.

But the whole album is permeated by a certain elegance which, moreover, is a typical characteristic of this singer-songwriter and musician's art. The long closing track 'Another World' is a true masterpiece of the genre and where the various comparisons with Nico, Vashti Bunyan, and Linda Perhacs abound.

One of the best American folk and female singer-songwriter albums of recent years, and its particularity is that it does not come unexpectedly given the various high-level works this artist has now accustomed us to.