A year trapped on plague island (2020 tracks)

Proggish repetitions in roughly three parts.

Percussive discursive patternity of the third kind.

From Fear To Patternity (v1)

Are you inside the bubble, or outside causing trouble?

From circus and bread to Facebook instead.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK5RktP0j84

Glorious sax appeal supplied by Jonathan Ogara (Open All Electrics): https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics

This wasn't written about COVID-19 self-isolation, but it could have been.

Inside The Bubble

perfectly timed for when nobody can go out, a dance track for you delectation, with accompanying rant

thunderous sax courtesy of Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)

They won’t be voting for the cause 
You’ll have to settle for applause
A charity sing-song day
Is your substitute for pay
The biggest thank-you yet
Is worth more than a safety net
They won’t be voting for the cause
You’ll have to settle for applause

They can grandstand and preen
Be robust as they please
But bravado won’t protect them
From this insolent disease

They measure worth and quality 
By the size of your salary
Behind the claps and bonhomie
Lie contempt and hypocrisy
As they smile and they pledge
Your left to wriggle on a knife’s edge
And as they lie and they blunder
Hold on tight to your silent thunder

Silent Thunder (this insolent disease)

Music and Words by Jonathan Ogara (@allopenelectrics)

Guitar and backing voice - Jonathan Ogara
Guitar, voice, programs and arrangement jiggery-pokery - Craig Winstanley

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5DNZZYj0RM

So Far:

A gentle soft heart
Hidden in her hills
Her life deep lived
Lost in her dreams

She would sing long songs
She would tell those tales
She would right those wrongs
And dance through dales

She finds the sun, she finds the sun

Wherever she is, she will find the sun
Wherever she is, she will find the sun
We were so near, we were so far
We were this close, we were this clear

She would walk on hot coals
And take the holy ghost
She could breathe through souls
And fix buttonholes

And She would ask us
“where is love?”
And our eyes would dance
And our hearts would run

She finds the sun, she finds the sun

Wherever she is, we find the sun
Wherever she is, we find the sun
We were so near, we were so far
We were this close, we were this clear

So Far (a C÷M track)

with added sax-olation provided by Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBoFZMDydk4

Shivers down the spine 
The spine of the book
The book of the film
The film of the day
Day or night-time
Time to shine
Shine the light
Light the scene

Scene-set the place 
Place the order
Order the treat
Treat the cause
Cause the ruin
Ruin the play
Play the song
Sing the fear
Fear and isolation
Isolate the source
Source the space
Fear and isolation
Fear and isolation

Isolation

Curvaceous saxophone courtesy of Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)
Video: https://youtu.be/vNYwDHQgydM

You wake, with senses opaque, to the fuse of your muse, confused by the shape of things that have gone, departed, confined, but with saccharine grief left behind, and the certainty that you find in the memory banks of the past, you contrast with the doubts and the fear of what horrors are yet to appear, but the now and the here is a shape that you cannot control, and it shifts and it squirms as you grasp to try and make sense of the present tense

And it takes all your nerve to flatten the area under the curve
And it takes all your nerve to flatten the area under the curve

The Curve

featuring reflective sax by Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWeJ6iSJlmI
For more photographs visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ1ADA7lNy8

The path of least resistance
The certainty of doubt
Reflections in a mirrored cage
The withs who are without
The burden of conformity
The illusion of choice
The silence of defiance to the inner voice

Waking up, coming home
Waking up, coming home

The safety in compliance
Shielding from the light
The appliance of the science
The truth that’s never right
So many years to drift the drift
The winding lane of fate
Released for good behaviour
It’s nevermore too late

Waking up, coming home
Waking up, coming home
(Following the path of least resistance)

The actor leaves the stage

Reflections

a C÷M song (collaboration with https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)

Space – you never told me ‘bout the pastures in your head
Face – you never told me ‘bout the actor's life you led

Walking through the silent timeline

Time – you never told me ‘bout the time it takes to learn
Crime – you never told me ‘bout the wasted time you burn
Hate – you never told me ‘bout the need to let it go
Wait –you never told me ‘bout the rustic lies you know 

Walking through the silent timeline

In your imagination, the fields and the sky, the wind  in your hair, in your mind’s eye
With nature your soul-mate, your bountiful friend, your loyal companion, love without end
A life without worries, anxiety free, a life without danger, a life without me
But that’s just a dream, a construction, in vain
The cruel rustic silence would crush you again

Rustic Silence (by C÷M )

Ranty sax and the odd piano tinkle courtesy of Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics).

The lyrics goeth thusly:

Dogmatist insistence, compromise persistence
Poisonous necessities, extinction resistance
Merry Gerry-pandering, oblique meandering
Moments of clarity, hipsterous dexterity
Contraphobic sanity, Ponderous calamity
Peripheral profanity, Stat-packed insanity
Throwaway connectiveness, ultra-bright defectiveness
Nominated reprobate, virtuous advocate

Deceptive conformity, emotional deformity
Factual ambiguity, intellectual nudity 
Off the shelf pomposity, counterfeited prudity
Border-line depravity, empathetic cavity
Hand-wrung gesturing, half-baked posturing
Blame game moronity, stupefied stubbornity
Blinkered conformity, dubious patternity

They’re laughing at you 

Wall to wall stupidity, stupefied community
Working, working tirelessly, optimist futility 
Easy sell simplicity, smugnorant complicity
Manipulated ignorance, proudly flaunted bigot-trance 
Cheer the nicely spoken thief, Kick the gift horse in the teeth, 

They’re laughing at you, because you want it to be true

GadDad Rant

Shifting sax and floaty flute played by Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)
For a solo, live, acoustic version see: https://youtu.be/IPTSFz0ap1c

It’s a time of the sighs and the lies on the radio
Dumbing down
It’s a sign of the times and the crimes of the bully boys
Lost in all that noise, with their dangerous toys
Shifting sands, shifting sands, camouflage guilty hands
Do the straw man, law man, flag man, bogey man
Fooling fools
Salesmen, pale men, stale mediocrities
Riding the wave of faith, nothing’s safe

Strive all your life, take the long road to understand
Knowledge base
You can search and research, learn the lessons from the history
They believe the mouth instead
The mouth in the empty head

Shifting Sands (a C÷M track)

Round and round the endless road, repetition overload, 
The circus of life
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?

Blinkered and bound
More lost than found
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?
Perpetual game, conceptual shame
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?

Collective mass amnesia, wilful anaesthesia
Fire and furious reaction
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?
The actors and the faces change, storylines remain the same
Blame it on the scapegoat faction
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?

Blinkered and bound
More lost than found
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?
Perpetual game, conceptual shame
Why don’t they see, why do they refuse to see?

None So Blind

A philosophical treatise on the perception of being (possibly)

Momentous sax by Jon Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)

All moments pass, not yours to choose
Which to keep and which to lose
Which to save for a rainy day
Which to bury far away

For more photographs see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNYwDHQgydM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ1ADA7lNy8

Moments (a C÷M track)

A combination of bemused rantings into the disinterested void & ambient doodling. Visit https://craigwinstanley.online I would like to create dark impenetrable experimental music, but I'm too fond of melody...
Bandcamp: https://cdividebym1.bandcamp.com/

Also see collaboration with Jonathan Ogara (https://soundcloud.com/allopenelectrics)
https://soundcloud.com/cdividebym

Other collaborations with the wonderful Augenmerk (https://soundcloud.com/augenmerk; https://soundcloud.com/augenmerk/from-the-inside-of-being_craif-winstanley-augenmerk) and Lemonade: https://soundcloud.com/lemonadelove/red-queen-by-craig-winstanley-ft-lemonade-1

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kakGLRTbV9o

MintFam community: https://soundcloud.com/mintfam.
Exclusive track (Smoothing the Wrinkled Front): https://soundcloud.com/mintfam/craig-winstanley-craig-smoothing-the-wrinkled-front

All tracks created using guitars, keyboard (midi) and Presonus Studio One Artist software.  Oh, and sometimes a microphone.

On here since October 2015.  

I've never really understood musical "genres".