To Pembury / To The Wells

Sometimes You Win

A 1980s style synth-rocker on the theme of vanity. In 1765 a local nobleman named Richard Hull built an 84 foot tower above 965 foot Leith Hill, near Dorking, Surrey, in order to raise it above 1,000 foot -- the designated (but arbitrary) official height of a mountain. Of all the things Richard Hull could have spent his resources on, he chose to turn a hill into a mountain. Why? Simply (and only) because he could. 

Of all the pointless things in history, this seems one of the most extraordinary examples of a vanity project!

Leith Hill

A riff-driven, effects-drenched lament on the subject of British sarcasm. Why is it that we Brits always feel inclined to ridicule rather than encourage people when they attempt to pursue their dreams? 

Parlour

Successful People (Are Seldom Sarcastic)

For (probably!) one song only, The Third Space go punk! (But even then we have pedal steel guitar and vocal harmonies in the mix!). A song about simply being fed-up. But not in a nihilistic sense...not forever. Just for now. Tomorrow, the protagonist will dust themselves off and try again. 

Roots

F*** It

F*** It!

A minor-chord lament for a gorgeous, red-headed girlfriend I once had. The one who got away and lament. Echo effects on the guitar and lots of vocal harmonies!

A nostalgia tinged 70s style romp through the fun of Christmas!

Looking Forward To Christmas

Upbeat, 1980s style electronic pop tune on the theme of upheaval in life and the need for change. Written by Joe and his eldest daughter Anna (then aged 14).

Upside Down

Piano and voice led love song to Angus Vincent Ellis (09 September 1983 - 09 May 2013), who left us far too early, aged only 29. Composed and sung by his uncle (and Third Space member) Joe Farthing.

Losing With Grace

Song For Angus

A diatribe. But with respectful reference to the Beatles' "Hey Bulldog!" from "Yellow Submarine". 

Bulldog

This song is about the tyranny of the TV. How the everyday can become oppressive. There must be countless couples out there where the TV comes between them; a distraction from the fact the relationship is on the verge of breaking. This song is a plea from one partner to another to not allow the TV to come between them. 

Don't Turn The Telly On

Written by Henk, Joe and William Manwaring, this song is an eighties era (U2 or Simple Minds style) atmospheric rocker about the saddest of all themes: the death of a child. In memory of a football-loving nine-year old who died of a relapsed brain tumour in May, 2014.

Hide In Heaven

"Baby, When You Leave", is a 1940s era crooner song written by Joe and his oldest daughter Anna (15 at the time). For one track only, "The Third Space" do Sinatra. 

Baby, When You Leave

A slow swamp-blues stomp through a narrative of accusation.

Monkey In My Head

A piano led ditty that recalls a trip to Paris in November 2014, when Joe and I walked for hours through rainy Montmartre in the early hours, looking for shelter and peace from spectres of ghosts past.

The Full Spectrum

Montmartre in the Rain

Montmartre In The Rain

So this is a platonic love song to my best friend Joe's Mum, June.

When we were teenagers, I practically lived round Joe's house, staying round there more often than not. Consequently, I quickly became friendly with, and eventually very close to, Joe’s Mum, June. We often used to share a cup of tea and a cigarette together. 

She was an absolutely wonderful lady; full of joie-de-vivre and an unbounding capacity for love. She had a fondness for Frank Sinatra. Like everyone else, she also had her issues, suffering from occasional bouts of melancholia, but I remember her with the greatest affection. 

Anyway, over the years I practically became “adopted” by June. One day (it wasn’t actually on my birthday, I don’t think, although my birthday is in June) she told me very generously that she thought of me a “a little bit (her) son” which touched me enormously. I guess when you are in late teenage (I might have been 19 then) you are looking for acceptance, and perhaps I was looking for it more than most. Anyway, it meant a lot to me. 

This is my tribute to the lovely June Gresle Farthing (nee Wyles).

June in June

June In June

A completely straightforward ska / calypso tinged celebration of a very simple theme -- going on holiday!

On Holiday

A jangly pop jaunt through one of the most volatile flashpoints in any relationship -- navigating whilst driving!

My wife Juliet and I get on famously (which is why we are married in the first place!) and rarely fight.

But on two recent holidays -- one driving up the Oban coast in Scotland and one in the Ardeche, in the south of France -- we found ourselves *politely* disagreeing...on which direction to take!

As the song says, Juliet is "analogue", preferring paper maps and her natural sense of direction; whereas I am definitely "digital", relying on GPS and satellite positioning systems.

But rather than focus on the negative (our silly fights about directions) I wanted to pivot these episodes into a positive realisation:

"...If Juliet v Satellites costs us twenty minutes time
What's that compared to the love we share
For our entire lives?

If Juliet v Satellites is the worst fight of our lives
Then I think we'll be alright
We'll be just fine...".

Indeed! 

If a silly squabble about left versus right is our biggest issue, then we're probably in a very good place together, generally!

So...this is ultimately a love song. I hope you like it. More to the point, I hope Juliet does! :-)

Juliet v Satellites

This is a song about anonymous British grafitti artist "Banksy" whom both Joe and I are big fans of.

Joe lives in Swansea (Abertawe), Wales, and a lot of our stuff is recorded down there nowadays. Around Christmas 2018, a new Banksy mural appeared on a garage in Port Talbot, Wales,  and Joe and his younger daughter went to see it.

Excited by this -- and leveraging an existing guitar riff Joe already had -- we wrote a song about Banksy. 

After a few iterations, he and I got together at his house in Swansea in February 2019 and completed the song. We hope you like it. 

'Cos after all, there's always hope...

To Pembury I To The Wells

Banksy

"Post Human (Ghost in the Machine)" is the Third Space's first venture out into the empire of dance. Although we have dabbled with electronic music (for example "Upside Down"), we have never before made a full-blown dance record. 

Our friend Mitch Deighton introduced an earlier version of the song to his brother Paul Deighton -- from "Ministry of Sound" DJ fame! -- and Paul re-mixed it into this version. Joe and I were completely bowled over by the mix -- we LOVE it!

Befitting to electronica, the subject of the song is futuristic; speculating on a moment in the not-too-distant future where carbon life-forms evolve into digital ones and one can "upload your consciousness to the internet". Professionally, a career-long digital innovator, this topic is one which fascinates me. Very Ray Kurzweil! 

We hope you enjoy the song as much as we do. With love and thanks to the Deighton brothers!

Post Human (Ghost in the Machine)

The song "Animals" started life as a recording Joe made on his lap-top. Quite "new wave" sounding, the original song was built around a jagged guitar riff. 

Henk took it home and when Joe suggested, in a WhatsApp message, the Darwinian idea of us all essentially being "animals", Henk developed words along that theme. In March 2019 at Joe's house in Swansea, we worked on this guitar-based version and added some harmonies. 

Then in the summer of 2019, Henk asked Siljan Panovski  to add keyboards, the piano motif Siljan came back with was so compelling that the idea was born to create a version based around that. That resulted in a predominantly piano + voice version.

In March 2020, Steven Separovich (aka column:inches)took hold of it and totally reworked it. This is the result. 

Vocals: Hendrik "Henk" Kleinsmiede
Piano: Siljan Panovski
All other instruments: Steven Separovich (column:inches)
Produced by: Steven Separovich (column:inches)

Animals

The music for "The Little Things" was written by Joe, using his guitar, bass, drum-loops and laptop. In October 2018, whilst staying at Joe's house for a few days to work on music, this was one of approximately 20 "snippets" Henk took home with him to work on over the next few months. He was particularly taken with the riff, which reminded him of white-soul singers like Paolo Nutini. 

For a while already, Henk had the idea of writing a straightforward love song around the theme of rejecting material reasons to be with someone, but just simply being grateful for having what one does together: the little things. Henk wrote a first draft of the lyrics around Christmas 2018, which Joe and he then worked on and refined together, during one of our writing sessions at his house.      

Joe originally sang the song (in my estimation, beautifully), but unfortunately, setting levels made parts of the vocal track "clip" and therefore unusable.  The second version, consequently, had Henk singing lead. Trouble with this version, was that we had sampled some female backing vocal tracks, which we did not have the rights for.

This final version was produced by Steven Separovich; aka "column inches". He also plays all the instruments.

The Little Things

The song started off as a piano riff which Joe wrote. Like most of "To Pembury <> To The Wells" album, this album closer started off as a "snippet" of music Joe wrote which was then elaborated by Henk; and then iterated together at Joe's home studio in Swansea. 

The final version was produced by column:inches (aka Steven Separovich)

Go Gently Into That Good Night

"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is a funk-rock ode to the illusion (delusion) of excess. The protagonist in this song thinks he is so dedicated to hard living, that he turns everything to 11. But the irony is that he is deluded...his "excess" at best stretches to smoking cigarettes in bed.  

Like most songs on "To Pembury I To The Wells", this song also started life a just a fragment of music written by Joe; which Henk then worked up into a song; which was then polished at a collaborative writing session at Joe's house in Swansea. 

Steven Separovich (aka "column:inches") arranged and produced the final version.  

Although we have used brass before on our songs, this is the first one that features an actual, extended saxophone solo.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

A straightforward break-up song in the style of a Sinatra standard. The protagonist loves his girl -- and she him -- but nevertheless the relationship appears impossible and doomed. This song captures the moment that realisation becomes absolute. 

Joe wrote the tune, and he and I wrote the words together at his house in Swansea, in March 2019. 

Drums (brushes): Mitch Deighton
Stand-up bass: Dan Giles
Piano and vibraphone: Joe Farthing
Strings (violins; viola & cello): Elliott Kempton
Vocals: Joe Farthing
Vocal harmonies: Hendrik Kleinsmiede
Produced, mixed and mastered: by Steven Separovich ("Column Inches")in March 2020

I Love You

A very straightforward four-chord song of despair. The protagonist's love has left him and he is "Lost Without You".

Joe and I wrote this very easily, one evening at his house in Swansea. I had the riff (a simple C-Am-F-G progression; one of the most common and most used in rock-and-roll -- there's probably hundreds of songs written around this simple structure), Joe thought up the melody and together we wrote the words. 

The idea was to write a really simple song with a really simple and common chord progression on a really simple, common theme -- unrequited love. I like to think we succeeded.   

The final version was produced by column:inches (aka Steven Separovich)

Lost Without You

Funk The Night Up (Last Night On Earth) is an INXS type rocker celebrating the joys of a BIG NIGHT OUT!

The song started out as a riff Joe had recorded on his laptop.

Henk took this riff and added the melody, theme and words. SIljan Panovski produced the first demo.

In April 2020, Steven Separovich (aka column:inches)took hold of it and totally reworked it. This is the result. 

Vocals: Hendrik "Henk" Kleinsmiede
Instruments: Steven Separovich (column:inches)
Produced by: Steven Separovich (column:inches)

Funk The Night Up (Last Night On Earth)

A folk ditty written by Joe on guitar, who, with a nod to the famous Baroque ballad supposedly written by Henry VIII, jokingly referred to it as his "Greensleeves" . 

Having laid around for a while, and with an earlier version of the lyrics rejected, Joe and Henk wrote new lyrics  to the song is a musical collaboration session round Joe's house in Swansea in June 2020. This version is sung by Henk. 

Guitar: Joe Farthing
Upright bass: Dan Giles
Vocals: Hendrik "Henk" Kleinsmiede
Choral backing vocals: Caroline & Darren ("Trovatori")

07) To Pembury / To The Wells

Tale Of Two Lovers

"Another Day At The Supermarket" is a late 1970s style, new-wave pop song, documenting Joe's experience of working at a supermarket during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. An attempt to channel the energy of the Undertones into a catchy, post-punk pop confection, it chronicles in vignettes a series of supermarket staff scenes and tableaus.

This version was produced by Will Manwaring.

Another Day At The Supermarket

The Third Space is a virtual, UK based band comprising longstanding friends Joe Farthing and Hendrik ("Henk") Kleinsmiede, resident in Swansea, Wales, and London, England, respectively.

Characterised by poppy melodies, jangly guitars, three-part harmonies and wry observational vignettes, The Third Space make music for grown-ups with an indie pop sensibility. Witty, quirky, but accessible.

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