Paper Music #1
It begins. It thumps with glee.
A two note school-ruler-on-desktop buzz jam.
Snares crackle, bass drums thud,
And a haunted voice carrying fragile strands of melody
hovers somewhere between speech and song,
A cotton wool whisper:
“Imagine………………………..”
“…………….sound…………….”
“…………………….. imagined.”
Child’s play electronic riffs are omnipresent and repeated obsessively
spraying notes in all directions.
This is not the future of rock.
It may not even be rock at all.
A fruity mouth harp and a raw bellow…
Snippets of voices, held together crudely with the audio equivalent of sellotape,
string, staples:
“Imagine…………….sound.”
“Sound……………imagined.”
It drifts, lapping at the shores of exertion, occasionally crashing into great washes of guitar.
A moment of twee home-organ, before the main theme crashes back down on top of it like a seafront wave.
The celestial Wurlitzer,
The ectoplasmic melodica,
And then it ends.
8-Bit Refrain
A Bo Diddley beat.
A simple riff played rock-solid in relentless repetition:
A sliver-thin, shining thing.
Brass stabs and bass jabs,
Bass jabs and brass stabs,
A kind of pop rock shudder;
A Chorus and a Bleep.
It’s the drums that call the tune, percussing all over the place, banging and
scraping and thumping,
And the simple riff
A two-note tour de force,
played rock-solid in relentless repetition:
All zingy and colourful.
A punchy torrent of stabbing horns and buzz bomb basslines,
(Bass jabs and brass stabs),
A chorus and a bleep.
You can hear the third chorus coming a mile away – the guitar painstakingly
scaling the fret board, the drummer getting ready,
Feedback, percussive clatter and the click of pickups spitting,
The stop-start riff like a giant’s fist in spasm,
leading greased strings to reach for the heavens,
Wired to snapping point,
A rock’n’roll disco moonburst,
A Chorus
And a Chorus
And a Bleep.
In Helvetica
Floating cities of rust, shadowy cellars stacked with fading parchment. Such is
the sonic landscape being explored.
Guitar and cello sounds get round behind you like shore birds at dusk,
Samples float through a half awake haze,
With the vocals beamed down from the astral plane,
A breathless girl saying;
“Write my name,
In Helvetica.”
There are no sirens wailing here, no chasms of dub, no babies crying, rewinds
or church bells phased backwards.
Just a few dried-up notes of banjo or guitar,
Loose, soulful ripples
Ring and resound in an unusual, parched red valley reverb,
The fragile, fractured voice wandering aimlessly around somewhere near the
middle of the mix;
“Send me letters,
Written,
In Helvetica.”
The musical accompaniment recedes.
Rattling around like a pea in a drum, a lone pianist
Evokes images of places you’ve never visited,
times you’ve never had, with people you never knew; it’s like being haunted
by someone else’s ghost.
The gossamer voice weaves a web of wonder
Its ghostly resonances bellow and distort perception like mist on a moorland;
“The alphabet dreams,
In Helvetica…”
Paper Blues #4
A stuttering organ, gasping harmonica lines,
A stuttering organ, and gasping harmonica lines,
Rasping vocals, “Trouble on my mind.”
Fiercely plucked strings, a melancholy bark,
Fiercely plucked strings, and a melancholy bark;
“Baby turn your lights up high, when your way gets dark.”
“She’s got a bed in her bedroom: it shines like a morning star,
She’s got a bed in her bedroom: it shines like a morning star,”
A faraway horn break, some wistful slide guitar.
A double-bass strut with a manic piratical swing,
Double-bass strut, with a manic piratical swing,
A demented howl, “Oh, make that yo-yo sing.”
A guttural growl, “She drove me from her door.”
A guttural growl, “She drove me from her door.”
Sulky piano, “Ain’t going to sing no more.”
