written by jim
arranged by jim + craig m. ferguson

jim: voice | guitars
kevin argue: bass
craig m. ferguson: guitars | drums

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio

****

it took me ten years to finish this. i started writing this just after ten fires. never got past the first verse. even when i would revisit it for everything i recorded afterwards it never ever came together. when i first had the idea of the great destroyer this was the first song i wrote. or completed. i think there were nine or ten verses in total. all of them of varying quality. so i shortened it.

unsurprisingly it’s probably the most jim dead sounding of the tracks here. when craig + i got the take down it was about nine minutes long. loads of hanging guitar + such. i heard it being about eleven minutes long. just swelling guitar - feedback... a distorted lead... maybe going all toto or crazy horse. that kind of thing. we cut it down, but maybe by the time you hear this we've convinced ourselves that the extended version would work.

kev heard the working mix + offered to play bass. he added a swagger + craig threw down the drum on top, w/me re-recording the vocal

The Great Destroyer

No Place Like Home

written by jim

jim: voice | guitars
joe anderl: voice
kevin argue: bass
craig m. ferguson: guitar | drums

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio
additional recording by kevin argue

****

the roots of this one go way back to 1997 or 1998 and my first band (sleepyhouse). I had written a song called elise which was a kinda earnest sounding Counting Crows-type number. it hung around for a while, but it never quite clicked. i had written words for room full of books when I started work on the great destroyer in early 2020, but that song didn't quite come together. so, i always did like the melody of elise… and had found the old 4 track of it + a version recorded at carlton studios w/danny mitchell (on the master for an unreleased ep called winter starts here) and i started playing it while singing the words to room full of books. the themes were similar too, so maybe that's why it fitted.

anyhoo, it was one of the first tunes craig and i recorded for this thing and we both liked it. it has a very 90's vibe. i shared it with kev and he recognised it from our early days in a band (we had formed sleepyhouse and then glitterball vegas together). he dug it and offered to lay down a bass track and that felt right. now we get to say it worked out. his bass is just perfect. it's just what it needed. i'm also pretty excited that joe provided a vocal here. i've been a huge fan of his band (the 1984 draft) since hearing makes good choices and we kinda connected about that. i could hear his vocal when i listened to this... so I reached out to see if we could make something happen.

Room Full of Books

written by jim
arranged by jim + craig m. ferguson

jim: voice
craig m. ferguson: guitar | bass | percussion

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio

****

This was written in a couple of minutes when settling on the last few songs for the project. I use the term written pretty loosely, as I literary played it when recording a couple of songs to send Craig. It was kinda throwaway... the melody was there in my head + I just sang some words.  A work in progress.
We listened to the voice memo at Craig's studio + we liked what we heard so it stuck. I attempted to replicate the tempo + melody, but it didn't go particularly well. What you hear here is Craig rebuilding it from the guide vocal. Getting the tempo + building a structure. My guitar was removed completely, as it was a bit shaky.
The brief I gave him was that in my head I heard U2 w/Steve Stevens’ guitar. A proper 80's mainstream thing. Craig knocked it out the park.

Mind Your Heart

written by jim + david mcneil
arranged by jim, david mcneil + craig m. ferguson

voice: jim
david mcneil: guitar | keyboard
craig m. ferguson: bass | percussion

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio
additional recording by david mcneil

****

Fringe Division was a project I’d started w/my good friend David McNeil maybe 10 years or so ago. We pretty much wrote + recorded a song or two each evening we met up. Usually Dave was responsible for coming up w/the music + I would provide some lyrics + the vocal… There were no boundaries or pressure… just loads of messing around w/ideas + then saying “let’s go for it”.

Those evenings were some of my favourite times + we recorded some of my favourite songs (that I’ve written).

Lost in Space is one of those songs. I always loved this one + when I started writing songs for The Great Destroyer this kept cropping up. So I felt a pull to revisit it (+ a couple of others!). I asked Dave what he thought about me revisiting it + he said sure.

When it came to recording, I messed up the guitar on this over + over. Hitting e instead of em + vice-versa. Even when recording the verse + then the chorus separately. I just couldn’t nail a take.

Anyhoo, I don't know how he done it, but Craig managed to piece the vocal take together + he built it from the ground up - removing the guitar, playing bass + building a pretty ace percussion ("A couple times you lost where you were, got frustrated, hit your guitar strings and snapped your fingers… I noticed that the finger snaps thru the vocal mic were nice and clean, so isolated and looped them as a snare or rim hit kinda thing. The ‘kick’ sound is one of the times you hit the muted guitar strings, but pitched down a few semitones and EQ’ed to take out the top end. I reckoned it’d work as an alternative click track to allow me to lay down a rudimentary bass part in the meantime, but it kinda fit the stripped down vibe so it’s stlll there. For now…")

It was only right that Dave was involved + he was happy enough to record some synth + that ominous guitar. Craig put all the pieces together + that’s what you hear.

So, this one belongs to Dave + Craig. They really built this one. It's darker than the Fringe Division version, but not a million miles from it. It feels like Tears for Fears meets Drab Majesty. Or something.

Lost in Space

written by jim

jim: voice | guitars
kevin argue: bass
craig m. ferguson: guitar | drums

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio
additional recording by kevin argue

****

this was one of the final batch of songs i brought into the doubters. for one reason or another it never quite clicked. i had been reworking it to make it sound more like a sparse number + that was the skeleton track that i had sent to craig. when it was clear that what craig + i were doing had verged off... well, we thought a big alt-rock number wouldn't feel too out of place.

again, kev laid down the bass track. i love what craig added to this one. his guitar in the chorus is perfect... almost whigs-esque. definitely one of my favourites here.

Tyrannosaur

written by jim

jim: voice | guitar

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio

****

i always wanted this song to have a home + it was one of the first tracks for inclusion here. it's also a nod to the original concept - the guitar + vocal. it doesn't need anything else.

Keep Me In Mind

written by jim

jim: voice | guitars
stewart traquair: voice
craig m. ferguson: bass | drums

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio
additional recording by stewart traquair

****

"the oldest song here. maybe. this has been hanging around on a notepad + rehearsals since 2007 or so. never felt like a jim dead song. just felt like something i threw away, but there's a lot of honesty in here that shouldn't be discarded, y'know.

anyhoo, i guess the learnings from fringe division + king of the stuntmen brought this one to this cycle. it's maybe my favourite. i love the backing vocal. how off kilter it is.

i asked traquair if he would be interested in doing something on this, cause i love his vocals. maybe a harmony... so he took the track away + put some ideas together. i loved it right away... the harmonies themselves sounding like another instrument. bringing a beach boys love you / wild honey vibe to the whole thing.

for as long as this was hanging around, it was never this complete."

craig on bass:
"I was trying to add bass to a new idea of mine, and struggling, so had a go at Head Full... in case it sparked something. It didn't as it turns out, but there are now bass frequencies present on HFoN."

Head Full of Nonsense

written by jim + david mcneil

jim: voice | guitars
kevin argue: bass
craig m. ferguson: guitars | percussion

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio

****

one of my favourite fringe division songs. originally recorded w/dave + titled devil's ruin. when i went into this it was a guitar + vocal track. i had obviously asked dave if he was comfortable w/me revisiting these songs + he was (he was also kind enough to lay down guitar + keyboard for a few). the intention w/this one was to play the acoustic + keep it sparse, but, again, we heard something else when we listened to the basic track.

craig laid some e-bow down which really gave this a mood. a vibe that was dark + kept it engaging. kev was happy to lay down a bass track + we tracked it on the final day of recording at craig's. i heard some fuzz guitar in there when listening to the unmixed track a few days later + craig got to work on that.

the fuzz guitar is excellent + i particularly like how that texture adds to the song after the initial solo that introduces that guitar.

"I deliberately tried to avoid going too 'shreddy' and used a tone that I'd normally avoid...

...but it's stereo guitars, reversed on alternate chord changes on each channel and panned hard left & right to give a pseudo panning effect."

Wicked Tongue

written by jim + david mcneil
arranged by jim, david mcneil + craig m. ferguson

jim: voice
david mcneil: guitar | keyboard
kevin argue: bass
king of the stuntmen: guitar

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio
additional recording by david mcneil + kevin argue

****

an old fringe division song and probably my favourite. or joint favourite. y'see, fringe division was one of my favourite musical things... i loved the freedom + the fact that dave + i went into it w/a 'anything goes' attitude. no limitations - which was something i always seemed to do with jim dead. songs had to fit a style or whatever. we went into each evening w/nothing + we wrote + recorded at least one song. some of them being my favourite tunes. i took that same attitude w/me to king of the stuntmen + then into this. so it all ties together.

naturally asking dave if he was happy to get involved in this followed the question about him being happy if i revisited some of our songs. he plays guitar + keyboard here, keeping it very close to the fringe division version. my guitar was a bit too sloppy, so we stripped that away. the keyboard + bass driving it (again, kev layed down some bass).

i felt that the second half of the song needed a stylistic shift. nothing dramatic, but something. i've been really getting into a few toto albums + i was very fond of craig's shift in tin man (kots). something like that was in my thoughts + i know an influence in there was toto, so i suggested something toto-esque. he obliged. i think it works really well... i dig the interplay / weaving w/dave's parts especially. it's busy, but retains the space + it doesn't distract from the framework or vibe of the song

I Need a Hole in the Head

written by jim + david mcneil

jim: voice
david mcneil: keyboard

recorded, mixed + mastered by craig m. ferguson at carpet beater studio
additional recording by david mcneil

****

another fringe division song. i always thought this had a great 'last song' vibe + when we were near the end of the process of putting the great destroyer together i had the idea to have this as the closer. i asked dave what he thought + he laid down the keyboard parts. this one is pretty much just as dave + i had wrote it. the vocal was recorded in a single take. no need to overthink it.

Embracing the Fall

written by jim
arranged by jim + craig hughes

vocals + acoustic guitar: jim
electric guitar + backing vocals: craig hughes

Nine Years

Sparse, slow, dusty and sometimes fuzzy Americana. Sometimes solo. Sometimes with a band.

Jim Dead

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