MOLLY LEWIS ANNOUNCES DEBUT THE FORGOTTEN EDGE EP ON JAGJAGUWAR OUT JULY 2
Stream “The Forgotten Edge” // Pre-Order the EP
Molly Lewis – “The Forgotten Edge”
Molly Lewis is a globally renowned whistler hailing from Australia and currently based in Los Angeles. On July 2, she readies her debut release, The Forgotten Edge EP, on Jagjaguwar. After previously sharing “Oceanic Feeling”, you can hear the title track now.
The title track — and really, the entire collection here — is a loving, and albeit rather haunting, salute to one of Lewis’s heroes, the Italian composer and musician Alessandro Alessandro Alessandroni, who’s whistle and guitar you hear on the title theme of Ennio Morricone’s A Fistful of Dollars. Lewis and her ensemble create classic cinema for your mind.
Of “The Forgotten Edge”, Lewis had this to share:
“This song reminds me of driving home late at night in LA where for some reason, if you are out past 2am, there’s never another car on the road…”
On The Forgotten Edge, Lewis ventures into the Exotica canon, sprawling, would-be Spaghetti Western scores, and a dash of Old Hollywood glamour. That Old Hollywood flavor was especially present at Lewis’s Café Molly events in Los Angeles, a series of soirées that have become fabled, elegant happenings with appearances from guests like John C. Reilly, Karen O and Mac DeMarco.
“Oceanic Feeling”
Lewis’ love for whistling began when, around the age of twelve, she was given the CD Steve “The Whistler” Herbst Whistles Broadway. Something contained in it clicked.
“It wasn’t that I was immediately obsessed, but I knew it was something I could do well,” Lewis said.
The daughter of a musician mother and a documentary filmmaker father who often focused his films on niche communities and topics, Lewis recalls watching a television documentary with her parents about The International Whistlers Convention in Louisburg, North Carolina.
“My dad said, ‘If you ever make it into the competition, I’ll take you there’,” Lewis said.
Turns out, there was no bar to entry, just a small fee. And so several years later, she and her father travelled to the convention. New to the form, Lewis didn’t take home one of the bigger prizes, but they were awarded the prize for “Whistler who travelled the greatest distance.”
“We really just used the trip to drive around the United States,” she said.
Recorded with a crack team of friends and musicians during 2020’s quarantine, The Forgotten Edge is rife with incredible performances from Thomas Brenneck, Joe Harrison, Eric Hagstrom, Abe Rounds, Wayne Gordon, Gabriel Rowland, Leon Michels, and Dave Guy.
