The Real Tuesday Weld

Long before the current popularity of electro-swing, The Real Tuesday Weld became known for blending the suggestive hiss of ancient shellacs and vintage radio transmissions with samples and glitchy beats in Jazz-Age era influenced songs.

After six idiosyncratic critically acclaimed albums, a variety of arts projects and award winning collaborations with film-makers they remain cult favourites known mainly outside the mainstream for their videos which have been watched by millions and from many placements in feature films and television shows.

The band have been playing live in Europe and the US since 2004 and are signed to Crammed Discs n Europe and Six Degrees Records in the US. Their live performances are often accompanied by atmospheric visual projections of commissioned films and animations.

They have recorded many radio sessions in the UK, the US and Europe including BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4, Xfm, Jazz Fm, France Inter, Radio France, Radio Moscow, KCRW, NPR and WNYC.

They were formed in 1999 by London art student Stephen Coates inspired by dreams of 1930s British crooner Al Bowlly and the American actress Tuesday Weld. Stephen also cites Serge Gainsbourg, Ennio Morricone and minimalist electronica as influences.

After a series of low key releases on British, US and Japanese independent labels their first full-length release When Cupid Meets Psyche (2001) was acclaimed as:
"a warm and welcoming arty gypsy knees-up, a psychedelic bossa with the polite reeds of a ‘30s dance band crushed by booming hip-hop bass..." (Q Magazine) and was an album of the week in the Sunday Times.

It contains the track ‘I Love the Rain” (an early example of the style Stephen dubbed ‘Antique Beat’) recently given widespread US coverage as the soundtrack to an award winning Chevrolet campaign.

The follow up I Lucifer (2003) was a 'soundtrack' to Glen Duncan's book of the same name (and another Times, Independent and Guardian album of the week) spawning the international award winning and much imitated track and animation 'Bathtime in Clerkenwell'

The US only album "The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid'”(2005) described by New York Times as "oddball electronica-goes-Tin Pan Alley" and "a hit of aural Ecstasy with a champagne chaser" was another highly individual mix of classic and modern sounds reprising older songs to "tell the story of a love affair from before its beginning to beyond its end".

In 2006 the band composed and performed their alternative soundtrack for Hans Richter’s 1948 surrealist classic ‘Dreams That Money Can Buy’ at London’s National Film Theatre. The following year they were commissioned by the British Film Institute to record the score for the release of the film on DVD followed by spectacular performances in the Turbine Hall of London’s Tate Modern and film festivals in the UK, Europe and Russia with Brazilian electronic chanteuse Cibelle.

2007 saw the release of 'The London Book of the Dead' another Sunday Times and The Independent album of the week containing the song “Last Words” which formed the basis of the original score to US indie hit feature “Nick and Norah’s infinite Playlist”

Several new films and animations made to accompany the album were premiered at the British Film Institute with “Cloud Cuckooland” and “Kix” gaining star features on YouTube.

In 2008 the band premiered “Propaganda from the State of Love” a live installation commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum continuing their association with the British art establishment and followed by live dates across Europe and the US.

2009’s “Live at the End of the World” was a limited-edition mini-concept live album set on the eve of the apocalypse in an imaginary London club and provided two songs for HBO series ‘Bored to Death”

In 2010 Stephen scored two US independent features: “Bomber” and “Meeting Spencer” as a development of the band’s ongoing composition work with various film-makers. In the sa