Most successful movies also have a sweeping, emotionally resonant soundtrack. People hear these songs and immediately think of the movie that gave them new purpose—“My Heart Will Go On” and Titanic, or “Take My Breath Away” and Top Gun. Musician Cody Graham’s newest musical release presents the possibility of the inverse: what if songs featured films? Primarily known by his moniker Colonel Macabre, Graham has made his mark on the Bay Area music scene by being strictly “anti-genre,” which means exploring as many different types of music as possible. His last album, slumber fantasy, is twangy, indie Americana. Some of his earlier EPs, such as diary of a street clown, skew more gothic, full of melancholic reverb. Now he’s branching out on an untitled EP into the experimental and electronic, under an entirely new identity—canadian postal service.
Melding a glitchy soundscape with snippets of classic film noirs, Graham gives these movies and their often tortured characters new life. The mysterious project stays authentic to Graham’s anti-genre stance with the presence of the movie scenes, as the noirs’ juxtaposition with such contemporary sounds propels it into more undefined territory. One leaning towards angsty shoegaze or indie, but stays timeless enough to complement the multimedia additions. While the canadian postal service EP is different from past Colonel Macabre, or “Colmac,” projects, Graham’s frequent collaborator and guitarist remains the same, in one Nic Kane. Artist Anna Yarbrough joined as well to craft the EP’s cover art, which is mostly white space, save for a sketchy house full of abstract creatures, such as a very grumpy anthropomorphized cloud.
The unifying factor between the songs from this project is their references to film. Specifically, each of these songs has sound clips from different old Hollywood thrillers, evoking not just an older, but a more dramatic time, full of tortured women and men alike. Paired with the more robotic music, it feels like you flipped too far on your grandparents’ cable TV or turned on a scratched-up VHS tape. Each of the songs, too, is named after the film’s leading man, often referring to him by some affectionate nickname. This centers him rather than the character who is often saying the song’s quote, deeming the track his before all else.
For example, the opening track is titled “bowie,” but the song opens on a woman, instead, whose anger is only exemplified by the thickest of Transatlantic accents. She accuses the listener of “stealing money and robbing banks,” saying she has “enough on you to keep you in prison for two lifetimes!” Her words fade in amidst a high-pitched droning, constant in a way that barely reacts to the threats. Halfway through the song, muffled vocals and extra guitar lines are added, but quickly restart as soon as they begin, stopped from ever finishing satisfyingly. By the time the track is finished, she’s allowed to complete her tirade, but to what end? The reverb sucks in her final sentence, like her concerns were nothing more than just another part of the atmosphere, repeatedly angry with no chance of resolution.
In this way, the music serves as a representation of the movie itself. The quote is from the film They Live By Night, about a 20-something murderer trying to escape his jail sentence by Bonnie and Clyde-ing his girlfriend. She’s not the one threatening him here, though. Instead, it’s another woman warning Bowie and his girlfriend of getting involved when Bowie is such obvious “jailbait.” The direct cause of the two of them not listening to her is Bowie being killed by the end of the film, leading his now wife to be widowed and distraught. While the music doesn’t make any attempt at changing the story laid out in They Live By Night, it displays just how flawed the characters in the movie are by presenting a track that feels unbalanced, too.
“davie” then picks up almost exactly where ‘bowie’ left off, with a repetitive pounding, getting increasingly louder. Over this, a similarly frantic leading lady admits, “Oh, he ain’t in love with me… I wish he was. I’d give my right eye if he was. I’ve never felt like this about nobody in my whole life!” The character who says this in the referenced film, Some Came Running, is named Ginny. She’s really only pitied by the main character, Dave, and treated as a rebound when the woman he actually fell in love with was no longer available. This comes across in the track’s haunting chords, building like an itch under the skin you just can’t get rid of. At Ginny’s declaration, the pounding breaks, releasing melancholic guitar chords filled with a yearning pulled straight from Ginny’s own chest. Graham includes his own lyrics here, but they’re unidentifiable over the bassline. Whatever they contain seems to sympathize only with Ginny from a voyeuristic view instead of directly soothing her. She ends the song with a plaintive, “I’ve got nothing… not even a reputation.” Just like viewers of Some Came Running, “davie” can only pity its female lead, leaving her trapped in her own sorrow.
While many of these tracks show the way film noirs looked down upon their female leads, “richard” shows the flip side of gendered expectations. It opens with a shouted, “What the hell are we doing here?” followed only by mocking laughter. The movie this is from, Faces, is about a group of malaised middle-aged rich folks, constantly caught in meandering circular conversation. While Richard Forst, a recent divorcee, tries to break free from this, it proves futile. The song, too, includes familiar tricks for this EP—a looping track constantly skipping over itself and drawn-out instruments hiding lyricism. This time, though, each of these lines ends abruptly, like they’re tossed out as carelessly as pleasantries in the film. The instruments do more than just obstruct; instead, they disrupt the song’s beat. Like Richard, they try to change the typical flow of things. By the end, they do succeed, fully distorting the microphone. But it doesn’t end with some huge overhaul of the norm. Instead, it just forces the track to fizzle out. In the film, too, all Richard’s efforts amount to is his wife admitting to hating him and another man committing suicide. The film and the song end in the same way—a tired and silent parting of ways.
The final song, “dixon,” continues immediately after, with the same static as “richard.” After its opening lines—“Why didn’t you call for a cab? A gentleman usually does under these circumstances. I didn’t say I was a gentleman, I said I was tired,”—we’re assaulted with a shaking noise, almost like the clacking of a typewriter. As Dixon continues his unnerving monologue, the sounds emulate a rewriting of the story, corroborated with “It’s his story against mine, but of course I told my story better.” It is a perfect end to the project, as it feels like the music is trying to brand itself as a newer version of its content. These chosen movies may be old, but the songs are anything but, aggressively modern with some form of computerized manipulation on each one. The lines from this final movie, In A Lonely Place, are clearer than ever, as Dixon declares, “There’s no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality.”
This feels like the true thesis of the EP. These songs do revitalize film noirs, but they don’t do anything to change their narratives. The women are often still damsels in distress and sidelined, while the male protagonists are each songs’ defining quality, and in turn stuck in this masculinity. At the time of these movies’ release, this was seen as perfectly normal. When many go back to watch these movies in the 2020s, however, it seems perfectly logical to call them out for problematic elements that only fed into the very misogynistic values of that era. This EP takes a more creative approach, showing instrumentally just how unsatisfying and sometimes dangerous these attitudes can be. These songs are self-aware, unlike their predecessors. The tracks are left with a sense of desiring more—cut-off chords and unfinished sentences. These characters are brought back to life for a brief time, but not with any more or less autonomy than they initially had. They’re certainly immortalized, no matter the cost, but now their legacy is cognizant of its faults.
