Recording of a song I wrote last year and then translated into french for a show while I was living in Montpellier. I might be getting round to putting a proper demo together and actually putting myself out there when I leave Italy, so while the mix here isn't great (all I have to work with in Italy is a not great guitar/some bad headphones or computer speakers), I'm learning.
Texts in both languages underneath...
West Facing Window
Do you believe that we ever did grow
Or just changed our proportions in changing our
homes?
It's quick to the heart and it's close to the
bone
You're loved but you're sick and I'm well but
alone
Even though I was the weaker one.
You say you've this fear of the end in your
head
Though we pray for the dead, we still bury our
dead
Do you crave sleep when you've fucked and
you've fed?
Are you one of us then, are you one of us then?
Only one of many animals.
If you were a brother to me
You'd pull my hands from my eyes and would
force me to see
If I'm to be a brother to you…?
But I know you
You'll go too far
Confusing high rise lights for stars, cats'
eyes for cars
When you're in the dark you should know where
you are
All I can tell you is all that I know
That is all you can hope is a room of your own
With some west facing window for home
If you were a brother to me
You would shout in my ears and would not let me
sleep
If I'm to be a brother to you…?
If I'm to be a brother to you,
Which one of these things do you think that I'll
do….?
Fenêtre à l'Ouest
Est-ce que tu crois qu'on a jamais grandi?
Ou qu'on changeait d'opinions en changeant de
lits?
Ça va vite au Coeur et ça pique l'esprit
T'es malade mais aimé, et l'inverse je le suis
Et c'est qui qui resens le plus ces maux?
Tu as cette peur de la fin de ton corps
Mais on prie pour les morts, on enterre ses
morts
Quand t'as mangé, baisé alors est-ce que tu
dors?
Tu es chez nous alors? Ô t'es chez nous alors?
Qu'un parmi plusiers animaux
Et si tu étais un vrai frère pour moi
Tu prendrais mes mains de mes yeux pourque je
le voie
Et si j'étais un vrai frère pour toi?
Mais je te vois, tu vas trop loin
Mais tu prends les tours pour les étoiles
Quand le ciel se voile
Quand on est dans le noir il se faut le savoir
Je ne peux que te dire de ces choses que je
crois
Que le sommes des éspoirs
N'est peut-être qu'un chez toi
Qui fait face à l'ouest sur ces bois
Si tu étais un vrai frère pour moi
Tu crierai dans mon oreille pourque je ne dorme
pas
Et si j'étais un vrai frère pour toi?
Mais tu prends les tours pour les étoiles
Quand le soleil se voile
Quand on est dans le noir il se faut le savoir
Si je suis vraiment ton frère,
Laquelle de ces choses tu crois que je vais faire?
Here are some photos some people sent of when me and Fausta supported Alexis HK in Avignon - best gig ever, fridge full of beer, he band were lovely and half way through the three course meal the bookers sent us for for some dude comes in and is all like 'the artist's masseur/osteopath is here, when you're ready'. Yeah. France.
Hi! I'm back!
And I done made a short thing for a string quintet...
The other day I was going through a load of old files (half-written songs, pieces of written music, etc.) on my laptop and found a folder marked 'ChinaDrôle'. ChinaDrôle was a super short lived minimal(?) project I started because, when I was about 18 I got super into minimalist style film music - I think it was walking home from watching Persepolis, for which I really liked the soundtrack, that I got the idea. This is a common theme, I would hear something I like and be like 'have to do that!' then write an album's worth of unfinished, never to be finished songs and forget about it...
Anyway - while rooting through said unfinished ChinaDrôle songs, some of them boring, some of them half decent. I found a couple of bars of a thing I had been writing for piano and violin, that I had totally forgotten about, and I didn't think it was half bad. Here in Bologna one of my (two) classes is this epic music theory course on Harmony and the Baroque and all this stuff that I have no training in whatsoever. This isn't to say that what I've done here has anything in common with that music, or that I've even necessarily followed the rules of that music, or music in general, but the course had helped me a lot to see why I do what I do and why I like what I like, and it's made finishing this, rewritten for a string quintet, really interesting. It's totally flawed, but I think it sounds nice, and I sort of like the idea of writing music for films, I wrote a short score for a person I knew's play once, and it was a good feeling.
On the course and why I'm enjoying it. A lot of people I talk to are anti-theory, saying that it limits your creativity. I've always sort of seen that as total crap. I get the point, for sure, if you let theory overrule your confidence in your own creativity, that sucks and you're probably going to end up a really boring artist. I read somewhere once that primarily making art is just about having good taste and a sense for what time you're in, the rest is about having the craft to realise that good taste for your time, and that takes practise and, quite possibly, theory. Theory just seems to me like a set of tools you can use when you get into trouble, that can help you appreciate things you and others do regardless of whether they form a part of a theoretical structure, and that can give you a reference and a context for when you want to break the rules. If I think about it, I'm not sure anything can ever be cutting edge if you don't have a little theory first and a knowledge of what came before, because without that you don't know what you're rejecting and why what you're doing is necessarily new, you're just moving about in the dark hoping to get lucky. Sure, that's fine too. But it also explains a lot of bands that only ever make one good album and disappear.
Theory can be elitist, which is bad, and in the end if it sounds or looks of feels good, it's all good. But I definitely get a bit of satisfaction in being able to say why Bach, for example, would be super pissed at the way I'm did this, but doing it anyway because it sounds good to me and I actively know what I don't like in the parts of theory and harmony I'm not using.
I've been living in Montpellier just over a month now and have been playing with Fausta for only a little less time than that. She's a locally pretty well known harpist and songwriter whose music you can find here. So far we've been mostly working on her songs as we've got some pretty big gigs coming up, including supporting Alexis HK (who is apparently pretty hot shit in France) in Avignon in October, but we've also done a little work on a couple of mine for some local concerts around Montpellier. Here's a video of a song of mine we played at our first show together a couple of weeks ago and that someone who was there just sent me, it's a little shaky, but good things are coming...
In other news, I now have a proper place to live, at least for a little while, and so will try and post new stuff more regularly again...
One more song to come for the Non-Verbal cycle after this. I need a bass. Listen on headphones, if you can. I am not good at mastering for computers/at all.
Pretty raw song I wrote in a quiet moment during my exam period (now over) have been drinking for a couple of days, looked over my notes having totally forgotten it, found it, recorded it. Didn't use the good mic, haven't worked any licks for it, just wanted it up. A lot of (properly) recorded new stuff to come. Rough. Also, it's HOT, digging gym shorts and vests.
Wuppertal
Got myself hooked onto something again
it puts me to sleep next to some false friend
when I do dream I do cross the outskirts
but when I try, waking, my legs don't work
Took that old tram right out of this town
waited around til the sun went down
the city grows out and there're more trams to take
don't think I'm asleep but I'm never awake
We've been running like rabbits and we're breaking our necks
Today I took a tube down to South London to visit my dad (David Miles) and work on some songs, he's a musician by trade and we were thinking of putting some stuff together with him on double bass for a few shows... Here's a video of our first ideas for QuietWinterHeart... BONDING.
You'll want to listen to this on speakers/headphones - computer speakers CAN'T HANDLE THE BASS.
We don't pay the bills, we just pace about,
and watch electric lights go out,
when it's dark we dance and play and shout
that our heart's our only home
we ride out into the night
and no one ever knows
how the quietwinterheart glows
Ferns grow in the fireplace
like lines show on our winter faces
they burn and soon smoke out the place
and we share our house's health
we ride out into the night
and no one ever sees
how the quietwinterheart beats,
and the days to come will be quiet ones...
and the days to come will be fuller ones
the days to come will be lonely ones
in the days to come we'll be no one's
so we'll ride out into the night
and only some will feel
how the quietwinterheart reels.
I got pretty drunk last night at the YWS Zine launch (which was excellent), this morning I was a little hungover and it was hot, so in the morning I sat in the garden and messed around with the guitar for a little while... I'm not going to finish this or make it into a full song, but here's an improv-ish thing based on what I was doing, there's some pretty new technique towards the end I haven't really used in a song yet. There are about 6 real words in the whole thing. See if you can spot them...
Philip is walking. This much you now know for sure, that Philip is walking. You may think you know other things about Philip. You may know that he is handsome, dark and tall, or dull, fair and short, or any permutations thereof. You may know that he is walking in a street, or in the country, or along a beach. But what if then you were told that he were walking weighted underwater, or on a tightrope? What do you know about Philip besides the six letters of his first name and that he is walking? Does it seem aggressive, belligerent to be told that you don't know Philip at all? Do you feel robbed of the voyeur's privilege, knowing more about him than he could about you, or disappointed at losing the illusion that you were a voyeur at all - that in knowing Philip you know less than you know. Now, let's not ask where Philip is walking, that scrolling and transient background will evade our ever knowing at all, but ask where is he walking to?
Here's a song, one of the many that have been sitting unfinished for the last few months. I won't write many more like this, it's getting time to switch up.
Do you believe that we ever did grow
Or just changed our proportions in changing our homes?
It's quick to the heart and it's close to the bone
You're loved but you're sick and I'm well but alone
Even though I was the weaker one.
You say you've this fear of the end in your head
Though we pray for the dead, we still bury our dead
Do you crave sleep when you've fucked and you've fed?
Are you one of us then, are you one of us then?
Only one of many animals.
If you were a brother to me
You'd pull my hands from my eyes and would force me to see
If I'm to be a brother to you…?
But I know you
You'll go too far
Confusing high rise lights for stars, cats' eyes for cars
When you're in the dark you should know where you are
All I can tell you is all that I know
That is all you can hope is a room of your own
With some west facing window for home
If you were a brother to me
You would shout in my ears and would not let me sleep
If I'm to be a brother to you…?
If I'm to be a brother to you
which one of these things do you think that I'd do...?
For the last month or so loads of people have been trying to get me to make demos, for various reasons. The thing is, I'm not sure I like recording things properly, I'm not really very good at it, and because of that I can never really get things to sound how they do in my head, so I spend hours and hours getting frustrated over it... this is why I usually just make youtube videos, it means I have no control over the sound besides the way I play, and that's comforting.
Anyway, I have just finished a demo, I did most of it about a month ago, then got bored and forgot about it, then today I finished all my work and I couldn't find anybody to play with so now it is a proper-ish thing. It's a song I've actually been playing live for quite a few months but never got round to making a video or anything of... I can't really decide on a title for it.
I really don't know how it'll sound on other peoples machines, but I imagine your best bet is bit speakers or headphones...
Don't go away from you
we pass like ships in the night always looking for some great truth
I don't know what I've been doing here waiting for you
there's an abundance of youth in the days as they move
say hey
I think I'm glad to know you are out there too
Soon I will jump into time I will leave for some strange city
I will love nobody, no, and have nobody else love me
the days will be talking, be working, be living, be void and sweet
until the time when a thing is because it must be
hey
I think I'm glad to know you are out there too
Don't go away from you
your eyes they shine through the night and they say what you say is true
I know that when I will know that will know that I will know it's you
I can say, finally,
Am I as I am because I am the way I am or as I am because I am the way that you left me? Am I as I am or just a poorly put together hybrid fictional character from my favourite movies? Sometimes when I think of yesterday I can't remember what i did I get confused it feels a lot like vertigo...
But I don't know what I don't know, if I don't know that I don't know it.
People on tv never just sit and watch tv, and 'no you cannot sell reality cause real life is boring' I believe that if you looked around you'd be amazed but they say someone else's life is always far more alluring The purpose and the destiny, excuses and the light relief, the things we used to hide inside are empty, false and in decline
But I don't think that we're anything by design and yes it's scary that we don't know where we're going yes, I think it's scary that we don't know where we're going but I don't think think that we're anything by design.
This is one of those songs I don't really ever think about, they just sort of ripen in the background, occasionally when I'm messing around I'll sing what I've got of them, and slowly they become full songs. "I'd like a songwriter who writes songs like a pumpkin vine makes pumpkins" - to totally misquote Calvino. Because no real effort gets put into them, I tend to undervalue them a bit, there are quite a few of them I've never even played live or recorded, but I'm starting to think that's a little wrong of me.
Anyway, Ed's in Scotland at the moment, writing books and tending moors, so I went to his house and nicked his ebow, I've put up two versions of the song, one is kind of an early ebow experiment (I'm sort of considering buying one, but they're way expensive), and one is a pretty standard version... so see what you think, I guess.
EBOW
NO EBOW
I see an animal
he's in your backyard
sometimes he fights with other animals
'cause life's so hard
he needs to eat, he needs to sleep, he's got to fuck, he needs somewhere to lay his head
he's just an animal,
he's alive or he is dead.
But nothing in between.
I heard you had an accident
I heard you fell out
now something's changed within your bones
these days you don't get out the house
you never talk you are a stranger unto me
you are a stranger to the world
you refuse to choose a life below the life you lived
this is what I've heard
We're nothing in between.
Thanks for this,
the sweet and dour(!)
your crippled legs
should mark the hours
should hang from a bell
and kick like hell at the sides
and tell us when it's time to wake up
tell us when it's time to go to work again
to church again
and hear about how no one really...
I have the internet! I'm not even going to think about uploading proper songs yet, because I'm a bit busy but, to relax a bit this evening I started playing around with a song I've been working on, then I messed a little with a loop pedal, then an e-bow, then a piano, and ended up having one of the most fun lone-jams I've ever had... unfortunately I didn't record the process leading up to the loop, or the tons of piano/ebow/guitar twiddling that went on, but here's a little sample of the loop on its own and a little messing around... mainly so I can remember it when I come to finish the song... bit tricky, I promised myself ages ago I wouldn't get involved with pedals and things again, but this was so much fun!
Here is a piano arrangement of QuietWinterHeart I threw together. I recorded this a week ago, I'm putting it up now.
A friend lent me the piano around a month ago and I'm enjoying it a lot, I'm really not much of a player (getting better, though), but really, if I didn't have to stop at some point and laugh/swear at myself, it would feel kind of weird.
As for the unnecessary German title, when I originally started writing the song, I wanted to write it in German, I started that way, but then a couple of lines came to me in English that I really wanted to use as they were, and so carried on with that. I still think I'd like to translate it at some point, then perhaps make one version exclusive to the piano and one to guitar... those are my thoughts on it, anyway.
So, most people who know me well enough to know what I like will know that my absolute favourite film of all time is Wim Wender's Der Himmel Über Berlin (Trailer below), Wenders also being my favourite director.
I re-watch the film a few times a year just because every time I see something new, and it never fails to do something for me, it's life affirming in this amazingly sad, real but fantastic way - it's a testament to Berlin and to the beauty of human experience, and in my experience, these two things often go hand in hand. It's also largely inspired by Rilke, who happens to be one of my favourite poets.
A few days ago, I was idly looking through some of the deleted scenes included on the DVD I have of the film - I was curious to see what the director thought worth leaving out, how he thought about his work and what belonged in it. And I found out what has to be the best bit of movie trivia ever, in the original raw footage for Der Himmel Über Berlin, there was a pie fight! Wenders actually used all four cameras and shot two takes of the three lead characters fighting...with pies! If you've seen the film, you'll know how brilliantly weird this is, and admittedly, it is a really good thing the scene was left out. I guess it was so obvious that it should be left out that the raw footage was never even cut. So, on the DVD where the raw takes are, Wenders, in his commentary, says jokingly that if someone wanted to edit the scene themselves and send it to him he would be really happy to see it finished, he even goes so far as to say that the best one he receives might get some pie.
So! I decided to have a go, I've always been fascinated by film-making, I love movies, and actually have a dream that I keep very quiet to some day make movies myself, unpopular, self-funded, bankrupting movies that I'll love forever. As well as making the cut, I've tracked down a middleman address for Herr Wenders in Berlin, and have written a letter (in my not so good German) to go with the DVD, I'm going to send it in the morning.
What's really cool about it is that I basically did it because I wanted to, it was a great opportunity to cut a raw bit of film from my favourite movie, and the process was great fun. I also got to, in a very small way, show someone whose work I've enjoyed and admired for a long time that I appreciate what they do, and that's cool. If Wim Wenders ever does reply to my letter, which is unlikely, it'll probably happen months or years from now on some terrible day and suddenly all will be awesome. If not, that's fine, getting a reply isn't the reason I did it. I used to do this kind of stuff a lot, just throwing myself at things, sometimes it really pays off, and it can't really go wrong, so I'd really like to start doing it again (on that note, I need to write to Joanna Newsom's press agent, I have a press pass for End of the Road and getting an interview would be amazing). If nothing comes of these things, it's still really fun and exiting to try.
So, here's the cut, obviously the audio wasn't intact or prepared so it's basically a silent with music, bar one moment at the end. The film was pretty damaged and there were various chunks cut out of it that I had to edit around, but there were some really nice shots I think I managed to include. Solveig Dommartin (the most beautiful woman that has ever been) and Bruno Ganz have some great moments, and Otto Sander pulls off some great facial expressions/slapstick moves. -It's all really weird that this was ever a part of this movie!
Here's the cut, the quality should be high enough to watch in full screen:
And here's my letter to Wenders:
I am really happy I did this. First post to Berlin tomorrow! I hope Wim Wenders checks his mail.
