Around this time last year, soulful Boston singer Ruby Rose Fox released menacingly beautiful single “Die Pretty”, and we remember the release date because it had just missed the cutoff for the 2014 Boston Music Awards. Had it come in a tad earlier, it would have no doubt been included in the Song of the Year category. No matter, though, as Fox was nominated for two BMAs: Singer-Songwriter of the Year and Best Female Vocalist. She won in the latter.
While “Die Pretty” could be up for a BMA in this year’s ballot (nominations are due today), she just gave herself some competition in the category — and put the Video of the Year gang on notice.
This morning Ruby Rose Fox unveiled a new single and video for “Dance of Frankenstein”, a track that will be featured on her upcoming full-length album, which is in the midst of a Pledge crowd-funding campaign. “Frankenstein” was recorded in Charlestown and produced by David Brophy, and the video (filmed and edited by Roger Metcalf) finds the singer with a rather ghoulish — and patriotic — new look.
She also broke a tooth while filming — though won’t say if it was from that chicken she feasts on. She does tell us where the inspiration here comes from, however.
“As I went into the Mary Shelley rabbit hole,” Ruby Rose Fox tells Vanyaland, “I became even more obsessed with how Robert Oppenheimer’s inability to disarm his a-bomb mirrors this classic so closely (the U.S. basically hunted him down and ruined his career). I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was that the two stories are so similar. When I was a kid, talk of nuclear weaponry was folklore. It was a thing of the past. But, it’s still very much alive like it was for the villagers in the novel. Nuclear weapons are strangely a forgotten threat to my generation as the Frankenstein keychain at CVS except the only difference is they are real.”
She adds: “Also, when I explore United States history, if I’m really honest with myself, I’m looking for love stories and of course their subsequent heartbreak. The violent love story between Oppenheimer and America, well, resonates. At the end, I’m never quite sure who the real monster is.”
For the immediate future, “Frankenstein” won’t be available anywhere but in video form, so check out the clip below, and catch Ruby Rose Fox when she performs at the Middle East on November 12 with Meg Myers.