Music and Elsewhere New Year Showcase

Its nice to start off the year by being featured in another podcast; its also nice that M&E chose the most experimental song Ghosts Of Grytviken (from The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level) for their New Year Showcase. There can't be many songs about the ghosts of whales (and whalers) that were recorded at night on Halloween - by coincidence not intention - but if there are, this is one of them.  

 click here for the Soundcloud link
The visible influences are different on this one, its not an obvious choice for a song and doesn't follow an obvious pop song structure. Its more of a psychedelic trip to the South Atlantic
Grytviken is an abandoned whaling station on South Georgia, roughly 900 miles off The Falkland Islands. When the whaling stopped in 1965 the whale-catching ships were abandoned and they slowly rust away in the harbour near the tanks used to store the whale oil. The explorer Earnest Shackleton is buried in the graveyard there.
Ghosts Of Grytviken is an atmospheric soundscape of a song, starting and ending below the sea, having climbed the mountains and flown with the wandering albatross before the first verse. Yes, its a bit far-out. The drums only appear on the chorus, but there is assorted ambient percussion including the ringing of eight-bells. Its not a dancer but still has plenty of sway, the chords move up and down like an ocean swell.
Its the Italia Mondial Classic six string on lead (and rhythm) with the Danelectro '63 bass.
There is an earlier post here with a bit more background, photo's of the whaling station and the lyrics.
I like a bit of wilderness so it'd be neat to go there, but it is pretty inaccessible. Definitely on the list though.

M&E dates back to the 1990s, but has been off the scene for a while. This is their first showcase in quite a while and should be every 4 months or so now. You can get more information here
The full listing and liner notes are on the 'showcase' tab and the full set is on the M&E Soundcloud page here 
Have a listen, its all real music.

Day In Day Out - the video

There is a new addition to the video-bar: Day In Day Out, from The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level. 

If you can't see the video bar you can watch it here 

Filmed in colour overlooking Manchester.
Had to get up 'a bit early' for filming, but the light was just right and the birdsong at the beginning was recorded live with the video shoot and left in because it sounded as if it should be there.

bandcamp

Both albums are now on Bandcamp, for streaming and download, plus pre-masters and oddities in the Work In Progress set. Have a look the link is here

The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level

The first album.

The CD has a 16page booklet, which is also provided in PDF format with the mp3 download via bandcamp.

The physical CD can be bought from a physical shop by visiting Spiveys'Web on Chestergate Macclesfield, or contact them via  http://www.spiveysweb.co.uk 

Also available from:

Amazon

Apple iTunes

Bandcamp

CDBaby

Spotify

etc etc etc

Glide On By

The live set always finished with Glide On By and so does the first album, because afterwards "the rest is silence"... The earliest recorded version is a 1989 demo. It was always a good opportunity for the bass to enjoy itself.

The song is about wasting time, frittering it away and not engaging in anything or with anyone - living life as a glide rather than a fully powered flight. It was re-recorded in September 2010.

Lost Memory

Lost Memory includes field recording carried out on two Scottish beaches and - in one of those unplanable events - an Oystercatcher flying past manages to count the guitar in at the beginning correctly at 72bpm.

The song is about recovering something precious that had been lost. 

 

There are a lot of different influences at work Including J W Waterhouses' Miranda And The Tempest and Meryl Streep in The French Leiutenants' Woman all mixed in with decades of cold weather out of season holidays.

This was a December 1990 demo and was re-recorded in August 2010.

Love - the video

The video for Love (from The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level).

Some stills taken during filming and to use as overlays

Love

Love is more cynical than Mr Lennons' song of the same name. It predates The Blood Oranges and was a regular piece in the live set. There are only three chords, but they are not the first three that would normally spring to mind. I listened to a lot of John Coltrane before re-recording this. Re-recorded in May 2010.

Love - Japanese poster

There is something about Japanese script that just 'does it' with film posters.

Keep It Quiet

1990 was an exceptionally hot summer. Roads were clearly visible on reservoir beds - once seen not forgotten. The global warming 'debate' had begun, but there was a sense that it was a very taboo subject. In many ways an assault on mother-nature offers a parallel with domestic violence. Keep It Quiet takes both subjects and rams them together. It was recorded as a December demo in 1990 and rerecorded in November/December 2010  

Ghosts Of Grytviken

The abandoned whaling station at Grytviken (on South Georgia) is an industrial ghost-town. Whale-catchers were abandoned there when commercial whaling ended and they are quietly rusting in front of the tanks used to store the whale oil.

The lyrics:

The Italia Modial Classic six string is the guitar on this, the introduction and coda are sound-scapes, bowed guitar and a volume pedal replicate whale song, and a ships bell strikes eight-bells at the end. This was another of the 1990 December Demo recordings and was re-recorded appropriately on Halloween 2010.

The images were captured from the South Georgia Webcam (see previous post - This Winterland)

This Winterland

This Winterland is about the Antarctic Treaty - preventing exploitation of the natural resources of Antarctica for fifty years - which was not fully ratified until 1998.

This song dates from 1989 when the discussions were yet again stalled. The wolves seemed to be gathering. it was a December 1989 demo. Re-reorded in October 2010.

The South Georgia webcam: Great fun. I found it while doing a websearch for Grytviken in 2007. It is fascinating. Some captured images are below - no filters, straight off the webcam which is  here look down their navigation bar on the right til you find webcam. 

Time Will Tell

As heard on Lord Litter's Magic Music Box (April 2011)

Time Will Tell is another song largely inspired by a painting. There was a temporary exhibition at Oldham Art Gallery in 1988, one painting was 'Truth Emerging From The Well'. She is of course naked - as truth should be, but she is bent on retribution against those that cast her down, She is clutching a birch branch to beat her tormentors and has a very crazed and menacing expression. It is an exceptionally powerful (if ridiculous) image.

Another element in the lyric is the Parliamentary 100 Years Rule; allowing some documents to be published eventually, but long after those involved are no longer concerned with their reputations.

Time Will Tell was a regular live piece from May 1990 (when it was written). It was re-recorded in October 2010. The faint feedback-like howl in the chorus is three notes picked with an awful lot of sustain and a touch on the tremolo bar.

The break? The song is about the passage of time. GMT may be measured from London, but Scotland owns the rights to New Year; Hence the Caledonian tinge.  

Going back to the painting, I can't remember the artist and it does not seem to have an internet presence. Oldham Art Gallery (which has moved to a new building since then & no current staff have been there that long) tried, but they do not have a catalogue for the exhibition. Here is one they did find - 

Edouard Debant Ponsan, Truth Leaving The Well (1898). She is only holding up a mirror - exposing the truth, but without any means of punishment - and I suspect that Religeon and Armed Force will have no problem shoving her back down again. That was not going to happen with 'my' Truth, which looked a lot more like this one that started doing the re-blogging rounds on Tumblr in June 2012. I saw it at http://darkclassics.blogspot.co.uk/p/about.htm 

Jean-Leon Gerome - Truth Rising From The Well (1895). She is Very Cross, the whip will sting and it will not be easy to get her back down again. Dark Classics pointed me at this one painted a year earlier - same subject, same bucket, same model, different approach. Truth paintings were a whole sub-genre and this model does look very familiar, I suspect the one in Oldham may well have been by the same artist.

Drive

There is something deeply annoying about TV car adverts, they have no relation to the real and frustrating experience of driving. 

All advertising is fantasy; but car adverts are the pinnacle (or the pits) of the form. If only we could drive right out of the real world into Advertland everything would be fine...

Drive was at a very early stage of Work-In-Progress in 1991 and was put aside until recording for The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level; so this May 2010 recording was its first airing.

Drive is also the last recording featuring my 1986 Vox White Shadow. She has now gracefully retired after 25years of service as my general purpose six string. 

Voxy Lady (xxx).

The lyrics:

Q: Why pictures of the Trabant 601? 
A: It is often ridiculed, but a lot of them made it as far as Manchester after the Berlin Wall came down. It may be a car made out of cotton waste with a two-stroke engine, but it became as much a symbol of freedom-to-roam as the motor-car is in general. It was highly desired in the DDR and other soviet satellite countries - with a crazily long waiting list. A true icon. But, I've not seen one in the wild for a long time. 

The Video for Drive found its was onto the NME website and can be viewed here. (Sorry about the advert on the front; that is the NME not me, but it is quite funny they did that given what the song is about.) Filmed early on a Sunday (5th March 2011) to avoid the standing traffic at the TFGM metrolink extention roadworks on Ashton Road, which star throughout the video.

Day In Day Out

Day In Day Out runs at 60bpm, unrelenting the pace of time. The alarm will go off soon, but until then there is freedom. Is this life or just existence? 

The strange harp-like sound is a Rickenbacker 12-string played clean but with some very odd chords. The song was first demoed in December 1990 and re-recorded here in July 2010.