Tracks with  Annotations

These are roughly chronological, but this isn’t some sort of history dammit, my delusions of grandeur aren’t that well developed.

 

Broken Water

Broken Water was written and recorded on one Saturday morning last July while waiting for the birth of my third daughter, Ruby. I really didn’t know how I’d deal with a third child, and my nerves weren’t equipped to deal with her being two weeks overdue. The heat and the tension were becoming unbearable and it, to me, captures the intense anticipation and fear of the unknown that I felt at the time.

 Not Enough Gun

Not Enough Gun was my homage to the terrifying Saint of All Killers, a character from Garth Ennis’ divine Preacher series. The quote is the Saint’s reaction to emerging from a direct nuclear strike, after having single-handedly destroyed a tank batallion. It provoked a belly laugh, and in its honour is my shamelessly dumb Morricone-esque stomp.

 So Far, So What

So Far, So What is another big, stupid track. It does what it wants and doesn’t really care.

 What if it all turns out fine?

What if it all turns out fine was my breaking out into optimism song. It doesn’t happen very often, so has to be enjoyed while it lasts.

 Face Front

Face Front was about acknowledging you can’t go backwards, or even sometimes stop. To quote Moby Dick, as I sometimes do…” look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp –all others but liars!”

 Falling off the Face of the Earth

Falling off the Face of the Earth was the flipside to Face Front. It was about looking forward in pleasant anticipation and groundedness; about being poised on the edge of something and plunging on into it, with no expectations.

 No Wine of This World can warm me

No Wine of This World can warm me – an improvisation largely to play with a new chorus pedal, it built rather well into something I’m fond of – an ebb and flow of tensions

 Glue haze

Glue haze was a kind of picture of contentedness, a warm opiate glow where everything’s more or less OK

 A Fistful of Squalor

A Fistful of Squalor was intended as another big, dumb, swaggering track with a bad attitude. Was also the first time I’d tried using an ebow on a bass guitar.

Tilting at Windmills 

Tilting at Windmills is a rare play with synthesisers – made in Reaktor and processed in Sonar. I wanted to make something that felt very fleeting and hard to pin down, but using pop chords – there’s a Mary Chain style chord progression under it, but very slow and processed to hell so that you can hardly pick it out.

 Quicksand in E Minor

Quicksand in E Minor was an improvisation without drums of any kind, built over a resigned-sounding bassline.

 Liebfraumilch

Liebfraumilch – I carried this around in my head for a good while before recording it. It’s a slightly chilly spring day, I don’t know what’s going to happen next and I don’t have that much control over it.

Slow Gin 

Slow Gin – creeping dread and reticence.

 Flies and Spiders

Flies and Spiders – layered acoustic, at a time when I was using less electric and trying to build the sounds up with processed acoustic washes. I find this rather heavy going and oppresive now.

 

Telephones are falling.

The title comes from a quote by my daughter Daisy, then aged two – ‘telephones are falling down, falling down, falling down; telephones are falling down, my fair shark’.

There was something Sylvia Plath-esque about that.

Leaving Thin Walls

This was recorded as we were about to move from a house with insanely high ambient noise levels. It’s done entirely with an acoustic guitar, using an ebow for some tracks, which echoed the noise the trains had made outside our windows for three years as they screeched to a halt at the station. It’s a noise I’m happy not to hear now.

Tight Shoes

A kind of Post Punk type thing, used a set of Boss Dr Rhythm samples for old times’ sake, still have the old machine in the garage and keep getting tempted to get it out and use it. Used to love the big snare it had.

Some Song or Other

An early recording, but it has a fair amount of emotion in it. And ebows. Ebows are always good.