Iggy Pop is set to stun fans with a new jazz-orientated album which has been scheduled for release on May 18th.
Iggy Pop’s work with The Stooges set the template for punk rock years before the release of ‘Anarchy In The UK’. With almost forty years of misbehaviour behind him, Iggy Pop is set to take a new high brow direction.
The singer contributed tracks to the film ‘Last Words’ based on French author Michel Houellebecq’s attempts to turn his novel ‘The Possibility Of An Island’ into a film.
In a new statement the punk icon describes his love of Houellebecq’s work. “I read the book with intense pleasure when it came out, and in my mind, I created music that would have been the music that I would hear in my soul when I read this book.”
Iggy Pop has now decided to gather these songs and more into a new album titled ‘Preliminaries’. One song, ‘King Of The Dogs’, is a New Orleans style funeral march which features Pop singing an ode to his “smelly rear”.
In a Myspace statement to fans the singer claims that “at one point, I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music, and I was starting to listen to a lot of New Orleans-era Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton type of jazz. And I’ve always loved quieter ballads as well.”
Of course, Iggy Pop’s back catalogue isn’t entirely devoid of jazz influences. Steve MacKay’s tenor saxophone on the album ‘Fun House’ for example was a clear attempt to join the nascent punk sound with the free jazz of artists such as Albert Ayler.
Iggy Pop will release his new album ‘Preliminaries’ on May 18th.
