Stills

It's been a while since there was any non-self-promotional content here, so here are some stills from films I've seen recently (this might be a regular thing, we'll see).

99% Cloudy... Always (2023)

Olivia (1951)

Scum (1977)

The Fall (2006)

A couple of these are moments of fracture: Olivia, left alone in the office of the head of her finishing school, with whom she's in love, lies on the floor in front of the fire, from heartbroken inertia. The dual roles in The Fall start to bleed into each other, as the narrator of the above scene begins to succumb to the morphine overdose he's just taken, and his character in the story is no longer able to stand. I guess you could say the same of Archer's vegetarianism in Scum, about to be breached by that sausage, but it's only a pose to annoy the borstal governor in the first place. Kazuha in 99% Cloudy... Always seems so much herself as to be incapable of being broken, though with her Asperger's she is vulnerable a lot of the time. In that scene, she's enjoying a moment outside an art class, where the tutor has encouraged feedback between the students. Completely oblivious to the hurt she has just caused by saying she could see no worth or interest in a photorealistic portrait, the opposite of her own explosive, abstract sculpture.

Whatever Works

Release day for the Mayfly Two album we trailed with the ‘Anti That’ single a few months ago. It’s baroque electronic indie pop, or something along those lines. The songs are warm, weathered, soft, sharp, comic, cosmic. They can cure you or skewer you, depending. They inspired the best arrangements I’m ever likely to make. We hope you enjoy them.

Instrumentals

Mayfly Two also have some instrumentals up, which could do with some ears if you would be so kind. These have been really fun to do, swapping loops or melodies and messing around with them. Me on guitar, both of us on beats and synths. Free to download at least until we decide it’s finished.

Anti That (Rock Version)

Not sure where to begin with this. Perhaps in April 2009, when Anne Bacheley and I collaborated on a track, ‘Anti That’, named after Stephen Pastel’s review of her album Headquarters:

Another record that we’re loving is Anne Bacheley’s Headquarters, a self released CD-R. From Poitiers, France, Anne looks like the secret third member of Melody Dog, and makes winning old-school indie music that lands somewhere between Holly Golightly and a less chaotic Comet Gain. Anne’s voice is perfect and imperfect, her playing primitive and gallant, her melodies true. It would be so great to see Anne get a record label to help out but maybe she’s anti-that.

It was finished but untitled when I heard the demo, and I suggested that title, but it could well have been written as a riposte to the very idea of getting help from a record label. I thought I heard something of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ in it, a certain worthy strumminess, that I set about unpicking with a beat pinched from Can and some very un-strummy Spanish guitar lines. And then, at the climax of the song, which literally cries out for power chords, I cut away almost everything but the drums, and let the vocal do the talking. Which it did, easily: it’s a great tune, and a great chord sequence, which only needs a light touch to do its work. It turned out really well, with this weird, lean, pop sound (like something on Morr Music, Anne always says). It didn’t rock though.

So anyway, I sent her my Morsels set towards the end of last year, which was not a little inspired by the playful hyperactivity of her anneemall EPs, and we – finally – ended up collaborating on more of her songs. It’s been worth the long wait, they’re so good I can’t tell you. And the reason I can’t tell you is that we’re looking for a record label to release the album we made of them, because they deserve to be heard. Don’t worry, when it’s time to decide we won’t compromise. And we probably won’t even find one. But! In the meantime, here is the opposite of that first version, played almost entirely with power chords. Rockism / Poptimism – who cares anymore, why not be both?

Morsels part four

Photo by Allan Gray.

Other gear / sound credits: Hologram Microcosm for guitar glitch and reverb; Boards of Deluge for the melting synths; Meat Beats’ Juno Works for more conventional but very useful sounds.