Iggy Pop shares new collaborative EP with Belgian composer Catherine Graindorge

NME

Iggy Pop has collaborated with Belgian composer and multi-instrumentalist Catherine Graindorge on a new EP – listen to ‘The Dictator’ below.

• READ MORE: Iggy Pop’s 10 best collaborations

The four-track collection was released on Friday (September 9) via the Glitterbeat label, and, as Graindorge explained, came to fruition after she sent off a speculative email to the rock legend.

“He played two tracks of mine on his BBC 6 Music show last November,” the composer began in a statement.

“So I sent an email addressed to Iggy to the producer of the show, saying that I was very honoured and that I’d be delighted to work on a track with him. It was completely spontaneous; I never thought anything would really happen.”

When he replied saying yes to a collaboration, “Iggy said to send him a track,” Graindorge added. “I began to improvise, and came up with three pieces at home. We communicated and began to exchange ideas.”

She said: “Over Christmas I recorded another track that was more rock. That grabbed him. Then he wrote the lyrics for ‘The Dictator’ two months before Russia invaded Ukraine.”

Listen to ‘The Dictator’ in full below alongside the video for its title track.

Of his love of Graindorge’s music, Iggy said: “There is a gothic masonry at work here, with a very old force abetted by very cunning structures.

“My contribution is to report, through words, the current threat, and the longing for happiness and peace.”

He added that the Belgian’s music represents “chalices, bodices, and old stones. It’s European romance and it creeps up on me like a fog; like winter in Venice, like a midnight wind”, adding that he sees her as an artist “as one with her continent and its canon”.

Earlier this summer Iggy Pop collaborated with Danny Elfman on new song ‘Kick Me’.

‘Kick Me’ is a fresh remix of the song that was originally heard on Elfman’s 2021 solo album ‘Big Mess’, which marked his first solo LP in 37 years.

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