MYSELF AND OTHER MONSTERS (DINKED EDITION #449) AMELIA COBURN

Renowned for her vivid, gothic-tinged storytelling, Amelia Coburn’s 'Myself and Other Monsters' is a cabinet of curiosities, where the supernatural hides within the domestic and beauty exists alongside the grotesque. Musically, it reaches for dreamlike arrangements and cinematic crescendos, with Bill Ryder-Jones’s production shifting from theatrical brass to melancholic strings and haunting harmonies.

Amelia has a knack for making the unusual sound timeless. Drawing inspiration from fairy tales and the inherent mystery of vintage horror films, there is a darkness at the heart of many of her songs. On 'Myself and Other Monsters', Amelia turns that darkness inward:

“Although the album began with something intensely personal, it is not a straightforwardly autobiographical record. Once I began looking at my own darker impulses, I wanted to examine the “monsters” that exist beyond myself: spectral creatures, morally ambiguous characters, unreliable narrators and the strange ways in which people can become monstrous, or be made to feel monstrous.”

At its core, ‘Myself and Other Monsters’ is an attempt to look unflinchingly at the contradictions within ourselves and the world around us, and to ask the listener where the person ends and the monster begins.