Brut Smog: January 2020

So I have a new album out. Whilst listening to your copy the following notes may bring some elucidation.

1. Rumble of The Ruins 02:23
In 2012 I bought on ebay a one-chip synthesizer, the SN76477 or "complex sound generator". Released in 1978 the chip was used in a variety of early arcade games and has a single VCO, LFO, noise generator, noise filter, an envelope (of sorts), and a variety of modulation options.

The circuitry needed some attention before it would make any sound, and was always a little idiosyncratic, but was pleasingly crude and a surprising number of tracks were conjured from it including pieces on the Ice Yacht cassette, and The Storm Bugs Certified Original and Vintage Fakes release. The Rumble of The Ruins track was originally intended as part of a collaboration with the Vas Deferens Organization Mutant Sounds boys called the Office Abandoned, but as that project has been put on hold (or even abandoned) for a number of years I decided to record a new version of the track for this release.

Don’t fade don’t fall

Let the rumble of the ruins calm your storm

As you sail bye-bye

There’s a glory hole gaping in the sky

Red crimson is the flow

As urban conurbations teem and grow

For sale, for rent

Anointed teenage bodies bored and spent

The lyrics nod towards T.Rex (King of The Rumbling Spires) and the William Burroughs novel Cities of The Red Night.

2. Window Sill 02:18

An early version of this track appears on the Linear Obsessional 2017 Christmas compilation A View From a Hill loosely inspired by the supernatural (or should I say eerie) tales of MR James. This version was as they say fleshed out with guitar, shortwave radio, and percussion.

Walking in the woods one day

I thought I heard a maiden say

Hello

Pushing through the bramble hedge

I saw her flaming ginger head

Aglow

From the comfort of your window sill

You saw the outline of the hill

Below

Climbing up to reach the tor

From the tangled bedclothes on the floor

He rose

Dipping in the stream that night

Under eel pool electric light

Hello

Walking down the wind worn path

Into the contours of the past

He rose

From the comfort of your window sill

You saw the outline of the hill

Below

Climbing up to reach the tor

From the tangled bedclothes on the floor

He rose

There is another echo of Bolan in the opening line shared with his song The Wizard, and of course borrowed by him from many a traditional folk song and/or poem.

3. Au Coin du Jardin 04:34

The synthesizer, percussion and voices were recorded live on Ed Pinsent’s Sound Projector Radio Show in March 2019. The synthesizer is the custom made soft VCS3 app built in Max/MSP, I have been tweaking for nigh on seven years. Gradually it gets more character just like the original, but with more routing possibilities, and the ability to save presets, so in many ways it is ‘better’ than the actual, but would I swap it for the real thing - of course I would. The treated voices describe a famous case of faux archaeology, the Glozel case. Just Google Glozel and find out. To the Sound Projector Radio Show track I added over phased guitar, it is a little tribute to Cosey who is the master of this kind of slide.

4. Raven Row (You Know How it Goes) 03:06

In some alternate universe this is a sure fire hit from 1986 or thereabouts, but we are in 2020. A draft was played live by The Storm Bugs back in 2012, this version has slowly matured with ever more layers of guitar, strings, vocoder, and what have you added to the simple synth sequence played on the Nanozwerg and RotaSynth. File under London songs.

A lookey-likey lover whilst working undercover

Took a liking to the brother of someone else’s mother

He texted her each hour, even from the shower

Pictures of his manhood hidden by a flower

You know how it goes from Ealing to Bow

You know how it goes down Raven Row

You know how it goes from Strood to Soho

You know how it goes down Raven Row

A sea salty sailor said he’d catch you later

Had to have a drink with a curious undertaker

Formaldehyde hot toddy coursed around his body

Rendering his manhood, limp and floppy

You know how it goes from Ealing to Bow

You know how it goes down Raven Row

You know how it goes from Strood to Soho

You know how it goes down Raven Row

Searching for a top-up in a backstreet lock-up

Ending up instead with a petal pink pop-up

She inhaled briefly, kept on smiling sweetly

Thinking all the while that this was kind of creepy

You know how it goes from Ealing to Bow

You know how it goes down Raven Row

You know how it goes from Strood to Soho

You know how it goes down Raven Row

5. The Elephant's Eye 03:00

The repeated synth sequence over which I first started singing had a touch of the Velvets about it, and though not a VU song Nico’s words from We’ve got the Gold came to mind -We've got the gold, we do not seem too old. This somehow morphed into - Please bring me silver, please bring me gold/ Tease me with your memories of being young and bold. Once the opening line was set the other words followed, a song for turning sixty too. Another influence is to the Faces Ooh La La, but the intent of the lines - I wish that I knew what I know now/ When I was younger/ I wish that I knew what I know now/ When I was stronger, is reversed so that it becomes - If only I knew now what I knew before/ When thought was just an impulse and love was something more.

Please bring me silver, please bring me gold

Tease me with your memories of being young and bold

Go fetch my suitcase, don’t forget my hat

I left it sleeping under a Persian cat

When you’re inside the elephant’s eye

When you’re inside the elephant’s eye eye

You might think it risible, you might think it a joke

I’ve lost all direction, my head is full of smoke

The trees gather round and beat their drums

The wind claps and howls and blots out the sun

When you’re inside the elephant’s eye

When you’re inside the elephant’s eye eye eye eye

If only there was a way out of this labyrinth of caves

A jaunty little melody that rises up the staves

If only I knew now what I knew before

When thought was just an impulse and love was something more

When you’re inside the elephant’s eye

When you’re inside the elephant’s eye eye eye eye

6. Funicular Freedom 04:11

A fellow Hastings resident was getting married at the De La Warr Pavilion in late 2018 and I had envisioned this track with its clanging vibes and sedentary procedural pace as some kind of celebration of the event. There are no lyrics per se as this is the first draft of the vocals. This is how I write all the songs just singing along forming words as one goes. There is then usually lots of revision. Pen and paper come out and over a couple of days ‘proper’ lyrics emerge, but in this instance I left things at the first stage with our lead character floating around on the West Hill watching the funicular going up and down. The title is a sly nod to Elton’s Philadelphia Freedom.

7. Funny Money 03:35

In 1976 when I should have been starting my A-Levels at the Grammar school I made a very ill-advised trip to London for a couple of weeks. The lyrics are inspired by this AWOL excursion but any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Musically we are appropriately enough in Pet Shop Boys homage territory. West End Girls being their finest moment.

Eleven fingers, seven toes, metal dentures, plastic nose

Never happy, ever sad, take your Mandrax, call a cab