Tuesday 10 January 2017

HOW TO MAKE AIR ITSELF - F*CKING BAMBI

Fucking Bambi



There's no question. Bambi is a sad old lament. It's the most recent song that made it onto the record and it's probably the most personal too - perhaps for both reasons I find it hard to write about. Suffice to say it's littered with autobiographical distress signals but, having said that, I think the lyrics are quite funny - even intentionally so - in places. I guess I’m trying to do a lot of things with this song musically and lyrically (ie: by my standards, it's ambitious). I hope I pulled it off. It's a favorite of mine off the record.

Massive props to Daniella (Grimm) who played the violin on this song and who was so patient in interpreting my (non -violin playing) vision of it and innovating around those ideas in such a personal way. Her playing through the 'pessimists jig' at the end of the track especially kills me.



Monday 9 January 2017

HOW TO MAKE AIR ITSELF - AIR ITSELF

AIR ITSELF



The title track (obvs.) and a song that has been with me for a while. The band and I recorded a version of it on the Present Perfect EP (2015) but the one here is closer to my original conception of it. I struggle to feel completely content with anything I make but I am quite proud of the lyrics I wrote for this song.

Vincenz Kokot (My Sister Grenadine) provided most of the ambient sounds and percussion you hear. Not many people can have said ‘I love the sound of an old music carousel mounted precariously on an amped up electric guitar body’, but I can.



Tuesday 3 January 2017

HOW TO MAKE AIR ITSELF - ONE OF US (II & III)

SINGER (ONE OF US II)



This one might be familiar to anyone who has seen a concert in recent years. It often involves me singing a-cappella and wandering amongst the audience trying to burn off nervous energy. Here it’s in a kind of folk/drone setting largely provided by Daniella Grimm's violin and and effects. The vocal melody came to me walking along the street in 2012 I think. I have that half fear that I may have lifted it inadvertently from a turkish pop song emanating from a car stereo on Sonnenallee, although listening back to it, that seems highly unlikely.

ENEMY (ONE OF US III)



The unreliable narrator shows up again on One of Us III. This song, like Reckoning developed out of a commissioned piece for the funding of my last record. Vince Kokot played the glockenspiel. When I finished writing this song I somehow didn’t feel like it was mine. Now, for the same reason, I feel it's more mine than most.

Both the song’s texts owe a debt to Jorge Luis Borges’ wonderful disturbing short story Borges and I.