''Cellar Door'' is an
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by
John Vanderslice
John Vanderslice (born May 22, 1967 in Gainesville, Florida) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and recording engineer. He is the owner and founder of Tiny Telephone, an analog recording studio with locations in San Francisco M ...
, 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 nam ...
'' 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 name ...
''.
The phrase ''
cellar door'' is one of the most beautiful phrases in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
, 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 Rawlins ...
.
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 demogr ...
'' 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 in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...
'' 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 (see 1819 in poetry) by Percy Bysshe Shelley following the Peterloo Massacre of that year. In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first mode ...
''.
# "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