''Cellar Door'' is an
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by
John Vanderslice
John Warren Vanderslice (born May 22, 1967) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and recording engineer. He is the owner and founder of Tiny Telephone, an analog recording studio in San Francisco, California, San Francisco and O ...
, released in 2004. The album contains a few songs based on then-recent films: "Promising Actress" is about ''
Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer William Mulholland. The western rural portion in Los Angeles and Ventura counties is n ...
'' and "When It Hits My Blood" narrates ''
Requiem For A Dream
''Requiem for a Dream'' is a 2000 American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher McDonald, and Marlon Wayans. It is based on the 1978 novel of the same ...
''.
The phrase ''
cellar door'' is one of the most beautiful phrases in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
, according to
J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
.
Critical reception
''
The Austin Chronicle
''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogra ...
'' wrote that the "rogues' gallery of miscreants and misanthropes dart among simple instrumentation (synth, guitar, drums) as Vanderslice channels their tales."
''
Exclaim!
''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...
'' noted that "as the content gets darker, the music grows strangely pretty, with delicate guitar, bells and his distinctive big, weird drum sound."
Track listing
All tracks written by John Vanderslice, except the lyrics for ''Pale Horse'', adapted from
Shelley's ''
The Masque of Anarchy
''The Masque of Anarchy'' (or ''The Mask of Anarchy'') is a British political poem written in 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley following the Peterloo Massacre of that year. In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the p ...
''.
# "Pale Horse" – 2:41
# "Up Above the Sea" – 3:41
# "Wild Strawberries" – 1:50
# "They Won't Let Me Run" – 3:52
# "Heated Pool and Bar" – 4:04
# "My Family Tree" – 2:24
# "White Plains" – 4:18
# "Promising Actress" – 4:29
# "Coming and Going on Easy Terms" – 4:27
# "Lunar Landscapes" – 2:50
# "When It Hits My Blood" – 3:27
# "June July" – 4:01
References
2004 albums
John Vanderslice albums
{{2000s-indie-rock-album-stub