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David Holmes

A Belfast club DJ who turned street recordings from New York into Let's Get Killed in 1997, then became Steven Soderbergh's regular composer and the maker of the Killing Eve sound.

Origin
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Years active
1992-present
Genres
electronic, trip hop, big beat, film score
Labels
Go! Discs, Go! Beat, 1500/A&M, Interscope
Also known as
Disco Evangelists

Belfast

David Holmes was born in 1969 and grew up in Belfast as the youngest of ten children. He was DJing in local pubs and bars by the age of fifteen, playing soul, jazz, rock and disco, and he had been a young hairdresser in a salon called Zakk's. From late 1989 he and Iain McCready ran Sugar Sweet, a monthly club night at the city's art college whose guests included Orbital, Sabres of Paradise, the Chemical Brothers and Slam. Orbital wrote their track Belfast after playing there. His first hit was De Niro in 1992, made with Ashley Beedle and Lindsay Edwards as the Disco Evangelists.

His debut album, This Film's Crap Let's Slash the Seats, followed in 1995. He described it at the time as inspired by movies and film soundtracks, a recurring theme in his work. Its opening track, No Man's Land, featured on the soundtrack to the film Pi.

Let's Get Killed

Let's Get Killed came out in September 1997 and was his first release in the United States. Holmes made two short trips to New York to collect street sound, and the album threads recorded voices from the Bronx, the Lower Eastside, Washington Square Park, Alphabet City and St. Marks Place between and inside its tracks. The title comes from one outing in the South Bronx, where, he said, he and his friends were chased by eight men who wanted their expensive audio equipment.

The music runs through breakbeats, trip hop and drum 'n' bass. It holds My Mate Paul, his first commercial success, Gritty Shaker, a reworking of the James Bond theme called Radio 7, and Don't Die Just Yet, a remake of two Serge Gainsbourg songs. My Mate Paul and Don't Die Just Yet both reached the UK top 40, and the album spent two weeks on the UK albums chart, entering at number 34. The Los Angeles Times called it a rich audio walking tour. It won Holmes best rock artist at Ireland's National Entertainment Awards, the first time a dance artist had been given the prize. Pitchfork later called it his breakthrough. His 1997 Essential Mix was voted mix of the year by Muzik.

Soderbergh

Film work followed. Holmes said Jersey Films suggested him to Steven Soderbergh off the back of Let's Get Killed. He scored Out of Sight (1998) in six weeks of 12- to 17-hour days. By 2020 the two had worked together for more than twenty years. When Soderbergh remade Ocean's Eleven in 2001, songs from Let's Get Killed and from Bow Down to the Exit Sign (2000) went into it, among them 69 Police, which plays over the closing scene. Holmes said the placements were Soderbergh's doing.

Bow Down to the Exit Sign featured Bobby Gillespie, Jon Spencer, Martina Topley-Bird and Carl Hancock Rux. AllMusic's John Bush thought it a vast improvement on Let's Get Killed, and Pitchfork's Stuart Berman called it a tour de force. In 2002 came the remix album Come Get It I Got It, and then David Holmes Presents The Free Association, made with four bandmates.

The Holy Pictures and after

The Holy Pictures, released on 8 September 2008, was his first album since The Free Association. Holmes called it his most personal record, and for the first time he did most of the singing. The closing track is a tribute to his parents. I Heard Wonders later played in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. In April 2009 The Irish Times put Holmes at the top of its fifty best Irish acts right now. A 2010 compilation, The Dogs Are Parading, gathered his own work and remixes.

He scored Hunger, which won an IFTA at the Irish Film Awards, and '71, which won an Ivor Novello Award. He scored all three series of The Fall and produced Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' Who Built the Moon?, a UK number one in 2017. With Keefus Ciancia and Jade Vincent he formed Unloved, whose songs became the basis of the Killing Eve soundtrack. Holmes and Ciancia won a BAFTA TV Craft Award for original music in 2019. Holmes has said Andrew Weatherall taught him early on to be himself and not become the derivative of the derivative.

Records

Songs

Primal Scream, Unloved, Andrew Weatherall, Orbital, Serge Gainsbourg

Where to go next

Official

Reference

  • David Holmes Encyclopedia article covering the DJ years, albums and film and television scores.
  • Let's Get Killed Background, tracklist, personnel, chart run and reception for the 1997 album.
  • The Holy Pictures Background, personnel and reception for the 2008 album.
  • Who Built the Moon? The 2017 Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds album that Holmes produced.
  • Unloved The trio of Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia and Holmes behind the Killing Eve sound.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Sources

  1. David Holmes (musician), Wikipedia
  2. Let's Get Killed: David Holmes in conversation, Clash (2020)
  3. The Holy Pictures review, Pitchfork (2008-09-25)
  4. The Dogs Are Parading review, Pitchfork (2010-05-06)
  5. David Holmes, The Guardian (2003-01-03)
  6. DJ David Holmes Says "Let's Get Killed", MTV News (1998-03-06)
  7. 50 best Irish acts right now, The Irish Times (2009-04-03)