Big Mess - 2021 US Anti- Label Black & White / Opaque Vinyl 18-track 2LP Set

After releasing a series of singles over the past few months, Danny Elfman is announcing his first solo album in thirty-seven years today, titled Big Mess.
Multimedia artist Sarah Sitkin created the video for Elfman’s new single release “True.”

A slow burning track, “True” faces down hopelessness and despair head on. Elfman’s vocals are gritty and growling here, and his raw unfiltered delivery only adds to the emotionally charged atmosphere. “The video is an exploration of fractured identity, muffled through the lens of memory,” Sitkin revealed. “Danny is a central figure within the video, yet only in his reproduced likeness via prosthetics, masks and 3d printed body parts. I wanted to make a video that was gritty, unpolished and uncomfortable.”
Clocking in at 18 tracks, the sprawling, ambitious double album finds the Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composer breaking bold new ground as both a writer and a performer, drawing on a dystopian palette of distorted electric guitars, industrial synthesizers and orchestra in an effort to exorcise the demons brought about by four years of creeping fascism and civil rot. He is joined on the album by drummer Josh Freese (Devo, Wheezer, The Vandals), bassist Stu Brooks (Dub Trio, Lady Gaga, Lauryn Hill), and guitarists Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails, Guns N’ Roses) and Nili Brosh (Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert).

Big Mess was almost entirely created spontaneously during quarantine in 2020. It began as an experiment Elfman had been considering which combined aggressive rock band and orchestral strings in a way that had not been heavily explored. “Once I began writing,” he explained, “It was like opening a Pandora’s box and I found I couldn’t stop. None of it was planned. I had no idea how many songs I would write but from the start it quickly became a 2-sided project with heavily contrasting and even conflicting tones.”

Tracklisting:

Side 1.
1. Sorry
2. True
3. In Time
4. Everybody Loves You

Side 2.
5. Dance With The Lemurs
6. Serious Ground
7. Choose Your Side
8. We Belong

Side 3.
9. Happy
10. Just A Human
11. Devil Take Away
12. Love In The Time Of Covid
13. Native Intelligence

Side 4.
14. Better Times
15. Cruel Compensation
16. Kick Me
17. Get Over It
18. Insects