so i've been writing this musical, right, about how friendship dies slowly but we're all the better for it. i know, sounds pretty bleak. in my defense it is going to be very loosely based on my own experience, or at least the long tailed feelings of anger, sadness, resentment, and peace i felt when it happened to me. 

to sugar coat the bitterness that the text risks descending into, i've decided to write the music as upbeat and positive as possible. to that end i wrote 'the view from down here' as a sketch to test the musical aesthetic i planned on aiming for.

lyrically, well it's a nonsense isn't it? but my wife wrote me a text by just constantly hitting the left auto-correct word and it spilled this oddly poetic collection of words out. i edited it, popped it through my favourite voice generator and bob's your uncle. literally in my case.

it's all a bit moot now as my hard-drive died and took all the work i'd made on my musical with it. but such is life.

The View From Down Here

Music by Herbie Hancock, lyrics (in swedish) by Disa Hasselberg.

Disa Hasselberg on vocals and Jonny Ek on piano. Sound engineered by Lars Törner. Recorded in Lars Vardagsrum.


For my daughter.

Dolphin Dance (vocal)

Three Pieces iii: 11/02/20 - 20/02/20

where to begin. this is a song about brexit and labour and class and frustration and helplessness and the world going mad in the aftermath of bowie's death. more specifically, it's an attempt to articulate the sheer emptiness felt as successive decisions were taken by my home nation, politically, culturally, and morally, that i couldn't recognise nor relate to. brexit, boris, you know what i mean.

it is a song that i filled with my loneliness and sorrow. but because i am a coward i chose not to sing it myself, but to fashion the words into the mouths of distorted robots. i dunno, it just clicked with me. 

the loss of self i felt back then was crushing. i'm still not over it. but i write music to express the things that i lack language for, and that is what this is. an expression of the words and feelings and rage and impotence of the weird, weird post-brexit shitshow we found ourselves living in.

Uplit Sunlands

I Had So Much Time (but Now I'dont) Demo 240301

A very early track, still figuring out what I wanted to do with the project. This one is primarily drums and modified percussion. It's a fledgling effort, but I love it still.

Copper Mule

"Born into a Jewish family, Kaplan served a sentence of hard labor during the tsarist years for her revolutionary activities. As a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks enacted one-party rule and banned her party. On 30 August 1918, she approached Lenin, who was leaving a Moscow factory, and fired three shots. Lenin was badly injured by two of the shots she fired. Interrogated by the Cheka, she refused to name any accomplices before being executed." - Wikipedia

many years ago i became obsessed with the song сон и пустота (son i pustota) by the russian electro-punk band fanny kaplan. i then looked up who this was and i dunno, it just stuck a note. the heroes who try to keep revolutions revolving when opportunists decide that nah, i'm in power now, we can stop. i actually had a completely different song called 'fanny kaplan' for the longest time but then i transposed the subject onto this other piece and it just clicked. then i heard the 4 part harmony and i was off

but yeah, go listen to the band fanny kaplan

Fanny Kaplan (at the second time of asking)

FKRBT2 - 05 THONGLOR

thisisnotadream - track 15.

I dreamt I had a daughter. She grew up while I wasn't looking.

~
Molly Jane, I can still recall your name, and the way you lit the room when you were born, 
and how, that day, my entire agenda changed, and all that mattered was that you were safe and warm. 
I left the cradle feeling glowing magma love. Drove to work so I could earn ourselves a life. 
Climbed each and every ladder with my head above the matter, then, clocked off at 5 to rejoin paradise. 

But as I neared the garden gate, full of excitement to return to my infant daughter, 
a woman ran through the estate and called out: "Dad!" So, silently, I turned towards her. 
I recognised her straight away… 

She said: “I don't know you very well, but I love you more than anyone loved anybody. 
Shoot your way up to the stars and I will hurt.” 
And I said: “I don't know you very well, and why should I? I was always in the office. 
But after all these years, I still recognise you.” 

I'd barely time to allow my stupid mind to mourn the childhood I'd let go to waste, 
before my eyes, in a moment of surprise, were jerked, by my alarm clock, awake. 

It took some time to realise that I no longer had a girl to feed and clothe and water. 
But still I must apologise - I was your distant Dad, and you were my fictitious daughter. 

“I don't know you very well, but I love you more than anyone loved anybody. 
Shoot your way up to the stars and I will hurt.” 
“I don't know you very well, and why should I? It's 6 in the morning. 
After what felt like years, I've had to bid farewell to you.”

Molly...Molly...Find yourself.

“I don't know you very well, but I love you more than anyone loved anybody. 
Shoot your way up to the stars and I will hurt.” 
“I don't know you very well and why should I? ‘Cos I never really happened.” 
Molly, I still think about you.

Molly...Molly...Find yourself.

I still dream about you.

Molly

Bill Cutbill's August demo, ∞ (Infinity Loop), is about everything and nothing. It's inconsequential, yet filled with consequence.

Ever hit a nail on the head, or a bullseye in darts? Or maybe it's all just part of the endless trauma, looping on repeat to infinity as some might say? We will find a brighter day, and Bill has admitted to me in strictest confidence, that his patience for this resolution is really starting to wear alarmingly thin. If it weren't for his sheer grit and determination, I'd be worrying about the poor chap not keeping this pointless promise to himself. Keep that trauma at bay people.

Like the majority of you, Bill Cutbill has never been able to keep a New Year's resolution before, so the real question is, will he make it?

www.safesounds.ca
@bill-cutbill
www.facebook.com/safesoundslabel

Recorded in August 2018 at Safe Sounds in Toronto, Canada. Safe Sounds is a real-life bank vault which has been converted into a studio; the video was also filmed in the Safe Sounds complex.

(c) & (p) 2018 Safe Sounds / Bill Cutbill

In Case of Death

a British : Composer : Performer : Producer

Contact: harry.g.perry@gmail.com

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Harry Perry is an eclectic contemporary composer writing under both his own name and as rryrry.

For more information please contact me.

Member of RUM DO.
Member of uncle phil.