I really love 7/8 time.  It has this jittery, non-stop energy to it.  Always kind of tricky though as that missing half beat is where you'd normally take your breath so you have to find new ways of phrasing to make it work.

I went for the most part with a fairly straight vocal tempo which is kind of nodded to in the line "things are getting so complicated, but maybe I'll sing a simple song".

There's also a bit of me realising that I often have quite downbeat songs (songwriting is therapy don't ya know) and I wanted this to be a bit more upbeat.

Funk - Caffeine Sunrise

Oh My Soul

These riffs were written a few years back, and I loved them, and recorded them, but they kind of got lost in the mix.

I finally dug the recording out and came up with the words, the essence of which is that I'm something of a glutton. If I smell something nice I feel the need to smother myself in the scent, when it comes to hearing things, I'm a sucker for an earworm, and definitely eating is something I struggle to do in moderation sometimes.

One Is Never Enough

The music is funk... that pretty much sums it up, there’s a bit of a bass solo and a guitar solo; the words on the other hand, I have a lot more to say about (*rant follows)

The title is a little joke between me, myself, and I related to the first line of the chorus.
The song is about my love/hate relationship with technology; the fact that every technological advance, whilst making our lives easier, also serves to remove an ability (simple or complex) from our basic skill set, makes us lazy, and (fairly often) eliminate jobs.  When watching futuristic/sci-fi films where computers and machines do everything, I can’t help but think “where are all the unemployed people?!”   One of the higher profile examples would be music downloads and people always say “oh well I don’t want to give money to those rich record execs blah blah blah” but of course those guys probably won’t take pay cuts; they just fire lower level employees (some of whom will presumably have families, mortgages and such) and of course the people working in music stores and CD pressing plants and other such places... but hey, at least we don’t have to pay for music if we don’t want to.
Many factories and processing plants have got into automation to the point where they don’t really need many employees.  One or two skilled jobs are created as far as maintaining the machines that do all the work, but of course that’s done at the expense of many, many basic physical jobs, the kind of jobs that people take on while they’re studying, or that they take on because academic qualifications are not something they are able to get at that point.

When I was travelling, I met a young Australian guy who told me that his car turned on the windscreen wipers and lights as and when they were needed, opened the boot for him when he walked past it and started the car when he got behind the wheel... I kind of had to wonder “What are YOU even doing then?   What happens when you have to borrow a car where you have to do all of this?  Will you remember how to, or will those reflexes have been dulled from disuse?”
Technology has the ability to join us to each other but also to keep us somewhat isolated and anti-social.
At the end of the day, I’m sitting here on the internet, posting music that I was able to record in the comfort of my own home thanks to technology, the internet has helped me discover music and movies and meet people that I might not otherwise have done, so I’m not really proposing some solution, such as returning to pre-industrial revolution era practices... I’m really just having a whinge on the current state of affairs that annoy me but that I also enjoy... confused?  I sure am; thanks technology.

The Convenient Bastard

the working title for this one was BSSM (not to be mistaken for BDSM) because yes it was heavily influenced by that brilliant album; the idea from the opening came from the Beatles' Hard Days Night; I've always enjoyed that jangly discordant chord that opens it.

Lyrically the song was about... well you'll know, if you've ever been in a relationship with someone who you find hilarious and who finds you hilarious... every so often you'll get those moments where you're having a great laugh together and suddenly, the laughter just stops... and it's business time.


Jekyll & Hyde

My fiancee suggested calling this one "Nathan's love song" and I'll leave out the usual description of the lyrical origins and let you make your own connections.

The initial musical reference was Joss Stone, but I was heavily influenced by this band called Lake Street Dive.  

Again I enlisted the help of my friend Jayde Walker to lend her brilliant, strong vocals.  She has her skills down to the point that I was able to take two independently recorded vocal takes that matched up almost perfectly, and mix them both together to really thicken up the vocal sound.

The whistle solo was a last minute decision because the combination of instruments and vocals created this implied whistle sound at the end of bridge so I leaned into it.

The Funk Station

Nathan's Love Song (w/Jayde Walker)

Not quite sure what came first, the slappy bass bit or the lyrical idea... either way this song took a lot longer than I would have thought to come together... partly distraction, partly stopping and starting with the lyrics.

I was listening to Primus' "the brown album" at the time with its interesting production decisions... like you might get the bass coming down the middle but the bass reverb coming in on the left-hand side with the drums, and then the guitar coming in on the right with a different part of the drum kit.  I played around with it but it got a bit muddy (brown, if you will) by the time I got everything in there.

Like Clockwork

In giving some of my music to other people I realised that a lot of my lyrics are maybe not quite 'acceptable'.  With that in mind, and with a suitably catchy tune, I ended up coming up with a song called Shut the fuck up.... go figure.

Funk - Throw it at the Wall

STFU

This song came from two different sources - me mucking around with a few slap bass ideas that seemed to sit nicely with each other; and the words "sex army" popping randomly into my head.   I'm not sure which of those things happened first, I just remember that they came together in a way I liked.

Sex Army

On a recent holiday to warmer climes, I rediscovered my odd childhood passion of sitting in the ocean and being soundly punched in the face/body by waves.  

I'm in awe of the absolute power of the waves.  When they're coming full force you can't just stand there and take it, you're knocked flat.

While I was being smacked around and dragged through the sand, this song (almost note for note) just popped into my head.  The words came pretty quickly after.

Into The Vortex

I was reading a book called 'Culture Club' that talked about one artist/composer who had an interest in 'closed loops' of music.  The idea was to repeat the same piece of music over and over again for a long period of time and letting the audience's minds start filling in gaps and searching for variations themselves... sort of 'interactive music'.

I decided to try a variation of that by just recording a simple loop and listening to it over and over again, trying jamming different things over it until a few things clicked.  Decided to stick with the working title and build the lyrics around that.

A Closed Loop

I have a keyboard and can do some instrument sounds on there, but it's not really a substitute for the real thing.   It's always good to know talented people and a trumpet player I know was kind enough to chuck down some parts on a couple of songs.

Unfortunately I repaid that kindness by doing white-boy rap over it.   Still happy with how it came out regardless.  A really nice groove.  

The gist of it is looking back on how you and your friends viewed relationships and sex when you were horny inexperienced teenagers compared to your take on it as an adult.

Horny

Not an exaggeration to say this song has been in the works for about 10-15 years.  Pretty sure I had some of the lyrics in mind before I moved to the UK in 2007, and laid down the guitar, bass and drums at a flat I lived in around 10 years ago.  Aimed it to build from a sultry wah-wah guitar groove to a thundering finale.

The lyrics have come in dribs and drabs, but in some ways that works for the song as it's kind of about how you constantly think you've got a handle on life and look back on yourself a few years back with a kind of embarrassed amusement, only to find yourself repeating that process a few years later.

Funk-Station

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