Listen to Kristeen Young's David Bowie collab, "American Landfill"
Kristeen Young, who you may remember as Morrissey’s regular tour opener for many years, has taken “Savior,” her collaboration with David Bowie from her Tony Visconti-produced 2003 album Breasticles, and reimagined it as new track “American Landfill.” “Toward the end of 2019 I decided it was ridiculous that so few people had heard this song,” says Kristeen. “It deserved a real release and a better platform for it.”
Working with co-producer and mixer Justin Raisen (who worked on Kim Gordon’s No Home Record), they kept Kristeen and Bowie’s vocals but basically everything else is new. What was once glammy pop is now skronky and off-kilter, befitting our current times. Certainly lines like “Did you wake up to find you’re buried semi-alive?” feel more of 2020 than 2003.
“American Landfill” is being released on The Turning: Kate’s Diary, the second soundtrack culled from Floria Sigismondi’s film adaptation of Henry James’ classic horror novella The Turn of the Screw. It’s out for Record Store Day on October 24 and we’ve got the premiere of the “American Landfill” video which Kristeen made in NYC during lockdown back in the spring using using found objects and whatever else she had access to. Watch that below.
As for how the “Savior” came about in the first place, Kristeen tells us, “[Bowie] came to one of my shows…and then I asked him. I sent him the song. He loved it. And then he asked me to sing on some of his songs….often just singing what he was singing an octave higher to ‘pin the vocal’ as he would say.”
“American Landfill” is out October 14 via KRO/SONY Records. The Turning: Kate’s Diary also features songs by Courtney Love, Warpaint, Lawrence Rothman, Empress Of, and more.
