SciFi4Music: IAMEVE – The Everything Nothing
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-67vbY_IBM]
Greetings ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first installment of SciFi4Music, SciFi4Me.com’s new series on music and musicians with a science fiction and fantasy flavor.
We begin with IAMEVE’s debut album The Everything Nothing, where singer/songwriter Tiff Randol brings us the journey of Eve Ami, “from self-destruction to self-love”, over the course of a twelve song concept album. If you don’t recognize Randol’s name yet, you will, and you’ve probably heard her music. She’s had songs featured on TV shows like The Lying Game, Degrassi, The Hills and Royal Pains and she’s been heard on MTV and VH1, Comedy Central and more.
I had the pleasure of sitting down for a Skype conversation with Tiff earlier this week and talking to her about the album and the video for its first single, “Throw Me A Line”, and later this weekend I’ll have the whole thing up for your viewing pleasure. Fun Skype pauses and glitches and all. But rather than wait until I’m done with transcribing it, for those who want to cut to the chase and know what brings IAMEVE and SciFi4Me together, well, read on.
Tiff Randol is a science fiction and fantasy fan. She’s devoured the Tolkien books, Jordan’s Wheel of Time, Dune and more. She’s loving Game of Thrones, and wouldn’t have missed an episode of Battlestar Galactica. And it’s informing her new project IAMEVE‘s The Everything Nothing at the core.
“The whole album covers the story of the main character, Eve, and her journey from self-destruction to self-love. It’s set in this kind of Orwellian metropolis where everyone is trapped. It’s about her experience as she, she tries to get out and then goes through this journey trough past lifetimes. I’ll do my best to display or explain the journey as each song goes along…”
Eve Ami finds herself on that journey beginning with “Throw Me A Line” and it will unfold with the release of a new track from the album every month, which began in April. And all you have to do is look at the video and you can see the science fiction influences.
Evoking Blade Runner, Metropolis, and to my eyes, Gattaca and Dark City, “Throw Me A Line” brings us to a world of shadows made of light where people should be, and the titular Eve finding herself restrained by chains both physical and metaphorical. Freeing herself, and touching a bit on the steampunk, she sets out to free those around her.
The second song off the album, “Another Day”, has been released and continues Eve’s journey, now taking a darker turn: “That’s where she starts her spiral down into self-destruction and is basically following temptation down a dark path… the next song is called “Self-Sabotage”.
I can’t help but be reminded, in all the best of ways, of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love listening to the first two tracks of The Everything Nothing. That sense of story, of there being a theme running through the separate tracks, those were what made Bush’s songs huge favorites of mine, and I’m excited to hear that kind of storytelling in music again. And Randol’s voice recalls early Kate Bush as well, while being uniquely her own, something I deeply appreciate. With Randol’s plan to release a video for each song, we’ll also get visuals to the story of Eve, one that I am looking forward to seeing unfold.
And unfold it will, and we’ll be bringing it to you as it does. Each month as new songs are released you’ll be able to find them here, with (hopefully) more discussions about science fiction and her music with Tiff as she takes us on Eve’s journey. And again, I’ll have more of our conversation for you this weekend.
Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t send you to her website, which you can find below, which has the released tracks and the video for “Throw Me A Line”, as well as more information about the album and more, and you can find her on Twitter and Facebook as well.
