Given that the inner sleeve of David Holmes’ fourth solo album features an old 1940s photograph of the Curzon Cinema on Belfast’s Ormeau Road, we can presume that the title, The Holy Pictures, refers to moving pictures on the silver screen rather than the kind you’re supposed to genuflect in front of.
No surprise there. Easily the most successful DJ ever to emerge from Northern Ireland, Holmes has always mined his inspiration from the movies. His 1995 debut was entitled This Film’s Crap, Let’s Slash The Seats. Two years later, Let’s Get Killed featured many cinematic-sounding samples recorded on a Dictaphone on the mean streets of New York. Much like U2’s Passengers side-project, his third solo album, 2000’s Bow Down To The Exit Sign, was created as the soundtrack to a not-yet-made movie.
Meanwhile, he’s been rightly acclaimed for his sterling work on Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 and its two sequels, and also for his evocative soundtrack to Michael Winterbottom’s Code 46.
Needless to say, he’s been kept fairly busy, which may well explain the eight-year gap between Bow Down and this new effort. Although Holmes first began working on The Holy Pictures in 2004, the idea had been gestating for a long time before that.
As he explains, “The story of this album really began on the 4th of August, 1996, when my mother, Sarah Holmes, passed away. I had always wanted to make a record about my life in Belfast and all the things attached to that – family, friends, loss, love and starting a family of my own. All the stuff that shapes the person you become.”
So it’s a deeply personal concept album about growing up in Belfast. Despite the fact that Holmes sings on several tracks for the very first time (albeit mostly through a lot of distortion and effects), this isn’t immediately apparent to a casual listener. What is obvious is that he’s been casting his musical net a little wider in search of new influences. There are snippets and shades of everyone from The Velvet Underground, La Dusseldorf and Blondie to The Jesus & Mary Chain, Beach Boys and Soft Machine scattered throughout these ten tracks.
Album opener and first single ‘I Hear Wonders’ is an urgently upbeat introduction that could’ve been penned by Lou Reed on ecstasy (though it was actually co-written with Suicide’s Martin Rev): “Here she comes again/Not satisfied with the state I’m in.”
However, it’s not particularly representative of what’s in store. This album starts off wild, gets menacing in the middle, and ends up fairly mellow. Along that journey, there’s edgy instrumentals (‘Story Of The Ink’), dreamchasing ambience (‘Hey Maggy’, ‘Birth’) and drug-soaked pop (‘Love Reign Over Me’).
Production wise, there’s a definite Eno/Lanois or William Orbit influence – most especially on the hauntingly beautiful closer ‘The Ballad Of Sarah And Jack’. Slick and stylish as it all is, there’s much substance here, too. Every time I listen to it, I hear something new.
Not knowing Belfast particularly well, and not having lived David Holmes’ life, I can’t say how well this album succeeds in capturing the essence of either. But if The Holy Pictures was the soundtrack to an actual movie, I’d be first in line to see it.