[Cover photo credit to Chloé McLennan]
London-born songwriter, director, singer, and artist Blixie Perestroika released her debut album, Ambition is Low, on September 9th, intentionally picking a significant date. To mark the occasion, she has also shared a new visual companion for the ballad, “Swing”, which may sound angry, according to the artist, but is really about yearning.
She explains about the release date:
The release date of the Album is September 9th, the date John Lennon released ‘Imagine’. It was a bit of an inside joke because of the sheer, mind-numbing audacity of releasing anything on that hallowed date and also because the album title is the antithesis of this broad social desire to strive to be heard, to hope for impact. So to set a debut release on the day that an album of arguably the greatest social impact in rock music was released is a bit sardonic.
She continues to share about the album:
“The title is also a play on an Ian Curtis lyric from ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’: “When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low…” It is heartbreaking and heartfelt and gut-wrenching when he sings it as an observation, or admission, of defeat. I’ve always loved the lyric, but have altered it to mean something a bit different, and applied it to a different time and context.
Nowadays it feels like a kind of amorphous ambition has settled over everyone like a gas…it is unthinkable not to be pushing or promoting something, and that thing is usually some caricature version of your idealized self. I find it depressing and I’m suspicious of that desire, that ambition. Tired of narcissists, tired of the relentless noise. It’s probably a Miserabilist perspective, and I’m not trying to cut anyone down, I know everyone needs aspiration or a level of self-belief to get up in the morning and keep going. When we write as a band, it’s for ourselves because we can’t contain it any longer.
Afterward though there is a moment where you think, ‘fuck – maybe someone out there will get this and maybe my fantasy of finding truly like-minded people out there actually exists…” but even after pouring my lifeblood into this album over the last several years…there’s no control over whether people will connect with it or not. And that’s okay. So the point is to do it for it’s own sake. Fuck ambition. Ambition is low. Surely it’s more useful to plant a tree, or something.”
